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(Including ALL of the book’s original spellings and grammatical errors!!) (with thanks to Ant Lady, Steve and Stace)

Transcribed in full by Carty Nov 2005 - Mar 2006

Reproduced without permission

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James Maw was born in Bromley in 1957, and was at Art School at the same time as Adam. His interest in the band dates back to The Marquee gigs of 1978 when he glued the pictures together for his local fanzine. In 1980 his play Milktrane about punks missing the last train back to Bromley from Victoria was staged at The Old Vic. From there he has written comedy for television and presents Thames Television’s debate and Rock show White Light. Eighteen months ago he place a ﬁve quid bet that The Ants would be the biggest thing in pop

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Thanks also to Antmusic Ltd for Permission to quote from Young Parisians
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.Many thanks to EMI Music Publishers for permission to quote from Kings of the Wild Frontier and Antmusic.

Ian Wright. Don Murfet for his trouble. Stephanie Gluck for the comedy.Acknowledgements
I’d like to thank the following people: Adam for his encouragement. Julian Sefton-Green for reaearch and saying goodbye to Marco Pirroni and walking straight into his broom cupboard. John Gordon and the unknown typist.
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. The performers and artists. Chris Brown. all those who talked and talked. Falcon Stewart. and Bruce hunter for the dotted lines… Sweathearts. Marco for a course on ‘Antmusic’. John Dowie. Angie Errigo. September 1981. Tracy Bennett. Malcolm McLaren for roaring with laughter at the suggestion that The Ants were more successful than Bow Wow Wow. Andy Warren. Peter Webb. Roger Gale and Roger Thomas for their suggestions Michael Finch for painting a clearer picture. Rebecca Read. Jordan for being Jordan. Danny Kleinman for singing A Cowboy Needs a Horse. For those who helped on the production of the book. Andy Stevens. Lana Odell for editing. Vivienne Westwood for her clothes and Style. Clare Johnson. James. Derek Jarman for ‘snucking in’ and paying for his pizzas. Dave Gibb. The gallant people of the record companies in grand ofﬁces: David Betteridge. Lester Square. Sheila Ming for shouldering the telephone. Juanito Antonio Wad Whani. Peter Vague. Charles Whiteing. London. all.

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. That’s why he’s lived through the ages. Out of his hat stuck six long pieces of string which he had dipped in oil or tallow like slow-burning matches. He had a thick matted beard. Then he would stand there. from his elbows to his eyeballs plaited into braids with twenty red silk bows tied on. glaring at you from inside his great beard.Dedication
When the pirate Blackbeard went into battle he would have silk sashes crossed all over him out of which stuck six shining pistols. And these are the images that people care about. all his pistols at angles – and he never fought a battle because he had more style than anyone else. He would light up the ends so that he looked a mass of ﬂame and smoke coming at you like the Wrath of God. like a rasta’s dreadlocks.

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That’s why they got called “wide boys” in the forties. the Teds were thought absurd for taking the Edwardian suit and wearing it with more dash than the Edwardians ever did. Shun the professional classes. glasses together. Some people say there’s only one way for a working class boy to become a rich man and that’s pop music. There’s a slur in the voice that’s essential to survival in the mish mash streets of North London made of tenements. badly built ofﬁces and canals. Goddard sits with Adam’s step-mother and reminisces about the boy who has been his son for twenty-six years. Now they ﬁnd themselves in the position of having to recall the early musical inﬂuences in the life of a popstar. “He never really showed a ﬂair for music”. The dream begins in the corner of your bedroom and you practice it on a cheap guitar. or the television.S. Softer than the cockney sparrow but just as acid. It’s the way out. He was an only child.” he always liked Tommy Steele.H. rolling his own and with ageing brown Sellotape keeping his tortoiseshell N. Adam’s father. If you speak with the accent of the teachers. no comrades. you’ve got no root. if you really make it you can be a legend in the minds of other dreamers. still works in a launderette in St. Adam was born plain Stuart Leslie Goddard on the 3rd November 1954 in Marylebone. London. says his father. Mr. sitting in an old red chair. Most of all it’s style. John’s Wood not far from where she
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. who remarried in 1971. His mother. no base. is a stocky man. The ﬁnest mark that Marylebone or Islington can make on a man is to instill a cheekiness and a natural arrogance in his voice. the priests. The working classes have always been the sharpest on style. It’s the big dream that anyone can have. it’s art or craft. He was brought up there in North London. For a few years you can live like the aristocracy.One – Early years
There’s something about a city that gives a boy sus. In a basement ﬂat near Victoria Station.

The hardship of these dwellings was increased by several families all having to share the toilet. He was bought a little plastic toy guitar and with this in his hands he stood before the set. and Tommy Steele. “I mean. If we were ever desperate. Then. the cheap pop of the ﬁfties mixed with the sound of rugs being beaten on the balconies. This was a whole different story. “It was always clean and always happy. He rarely looked at it. I was very insular. There was no luxury. The most constant sound in the ears of toddler Adam was the lavatory on the landing. one in which I had to invent and conjure up entertainment for myself. They were living in a fashion to which the Working Class families of London had become accustomed.” There was one of those old television sets in their ﬂat. something much more interesting on a shelf beneath the set: a record player. then it was always concealed from me. however. On this his mother would play her records. I can hardly ever remember entertaining anybody at home. Having to go out in the middle of the night on to the landing. There was no water on tap. and there’s real poor.” The little family of three lived in two small rooms in St. he would mime to his mother’s records. where the light streamed in through the windows. John’s Wood in a place called Dewalden Buildings. and the late ﬁfties decor of the living room looking through to the bedroom with the great double-bed of his parents. but there was always food on the table. a daunting collection of Victorian Dwellings.
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. Hence there were no real complaints. so that he could see his reﬂection in the screen. Adam remembers his early years as “A lonely childhood. and to the young Adam it was like a big eye. While his family were watching it.used “do” for Paul McCartney. There was. The noise of the other families. which mainly consisted of Lonnie Donegan Scifﬂe. they would have to keep one eye on his since his lack of interest in the TV had been replaced by a liking for the cigarette dogends in the ashtrays. the type that looked as if it had been built as a plinth for a war memorial. which he would gobble up with relish. when the house was empty. The image of those two low ceilinged rooms has stayed powerfully with him. there’s poor. It was huge and heavily lacquered.

she showed me hers but I didn’t show her mine because the bell went. namely the young ladies. and this he chose to do with a brick. Mister. He had fallen in love with the girl next door. a girl called Sonia “She was lovely”. “But of course they must have been just tiny tots. to me they were very gorgeous.” a look of surprise crosses Adam’s face.The time came for him to start school and he was enrolled at Robinsﬁeld Primary. who was a lorry driver. her name was Tracy. “You show me yours and I’ll show you mine” .” We forget in later life just what an almighty lack of innocence we had as children. Perry Como singing Catch a Falling Star and Magic Moments. crashed into three different milkﬂoats on three consecutive mornings as well. I was very attracted to them. His grandfather on his father’s side had been a jazz musician. “I remember playing doctors and nurses with a girl called Harriet Llewellyn-Davis under the table in the Art Room. Two tracks which remain impressed upon Adam’s “sense of the song. Adam still recalls with relish the ﬁrst girl he ever kissed. The most notable mark he made on the school was on it’s windows. and so for the two following mornings he repeated his act. a versatile performer who could play anything. “Go and play nicely upstairs” – you better believe it.” and which
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. which Adam can’t recall. High spirits. “Those relationships than I can vividly remember. Arriving at the school he hurled it in through the window which displeased the governors of his education. His eyes sparkle as the images of years ago ﬂood back fresh. The parents were called up to the School to answer for this terribly disturbing protest of their son. A lot of Adam’s energies however were directed toward less breakable objects. And then the whole thing was made more absurd by the fact that his grandfather. on his way to school one morning a lovely brick along the way took his fancy. Bricks are creatures that prefer to live together. either in buildings or piles. Among his mother’s records a new favourite had risen.” Adam’s musical interests had begun to develop as well. and he savours to the full his ﬁrst sexual encounter. In this case Adam discovered a whole pile of them. it seemed could not occur on three consecutive mornings. For some reason.

” He moved with his mother away from Dewalden Buildings into another set of two rooms practically identical. Freddie Mills the boxer. She encouraged him in his painting and this was his salvation. John’s Wood. She was working as a cleaning lady for the McCartneys in St. I think. “It was. Adam began to get fascinated by the Sunday afternoon matinee on the television because of characters like that in those English ﬁfties ﬁlms. He had a Beatle wig and would reel off all the names of the Beatles. spreading himself across the ﬂoor of the shop. his parents had split up. quite emotionally difﬁcult for me to sustain. she now writes novels and could see that the young Adam was a more creative child than the other teachers had realized. Adam did this and he pretended to be knocked out. “This is great. He took to visiting his father every Sunday and together they went off visiting places like Hampton Court.gave him a respect for those singers which go on and on. He got interested in the pop shows too and saw the ﬁrst edition of Thank Your Lucky Stars and the ﬁrst Rolling Stones appearance. His father had taken him to Hamley’s toyshop where he met a great ﬁfties character. castles that stood like hollow shells reverberating with the characters of English history. “It was an interest in drawing and painting that nearly saved me from going down hill. There was a teacher at school who took it upon herself to help him. Adam had begun to get interested in the television. performance or the arts. Encouragement is everything. Her name was Joanna Saloman.” he said to himself. He was promoting the “Freddie Mills Punchbag” and he crouched down and invited Adam to hit him in the jaw. Adam developed a passion for History. This is particularly so if you came from a poor family where books do not line every wall and the only pictures around would be better slapped on chocolate boxes used to keep old buttons. he got a “real buzz” off visiting places that still had a foot in the past. By the time he got to Barrow Hill Junior School. is often one of “Thank Goodness”. It was through Miss Saloman’s encouragement that Adam
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. It’s a hard thing for a seven year old to understand.” The story of people who eventually come before the public in whatever ﬁeld.

He either went down to Birchington in Kent. His life and his stories fascinated the young Adam. He ran away and got himself into the army. He is still haunted by the image of the strong-boned Romany blooded old man spending his days alone in a car park. Before he could get to France. He was completely heartbroken. when at Junior School.
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. however. if he could choose. He was a dapper man.” Adam was fond of his grandmother too. his mother had tracked him down and informed the army that one of their new recruits was only fourteen. When the First World War broke out the adventure of War appealed to his young blood and his thirst to get the miles under his feet. near the coast at Seaford. From then on he was determined. When Watler retired from working he couldn’t sit still and took a job again working in a car park. Later in life. or to stay with his Aunt Mary and Uncle Charlie in Cookham. “You better believe it. She was a delicate. it seemed to mark out a destiny for me. and the two became very close. He was born in a Caravan in Oxford and names Walter Albany Smith. wore shoes. Adam says quite emphatically: “Painting and drawing were quite evidently the changing point of my life. It is what every child looks for and few pursue.produced his ﬁrst “work”. Adam’s grandfather on his mother’s side was a fullblooded Romany Gypsy. He waited and joined the Navy. it was a picture of a goose with multicoloured feathers. pining for his wife. The old man appreciating the bright-eyed boy who loved to hear him talk. coming out of the war as a leading torpedo-man. everyday dying himself inside. He had found something that he was “better at”. to come from a Romany Origin and have a family. and the young boy learning at his hands to respect his origins and to admire the solid qualities of earth and honesty that he embodied. Some of the happiest times of his childhood were spent in the country staying with cousins. Then Adam’s grandmother died. sweet little lady who gave him potatoes cooked with mince. She and her husband had seven children.” One of the other great inﬂuences of his childhood was his grandfather. a house and a job at that time in England was a big deal. strong with a great deal of spirit and sported a Dandelion suit and never in all his life. he would frequently visit him on the way home.

the most evil of life’s selection procedures. One of Adam’s cousins was the art teacher in the town and used to get Spencer to come and talk to the kids. Constant constant exams. it did matter. Perry and Patrick Tisdale. his enthusiasm carries him in. One of the great things that the village of Cookham gave to Adam was a love for the painter Stanley Spencer. Christmas exams. Cramming. however that he couldn’t decline his latin verbs. a village made famous by Spencer. Adam is not the sort of person who looks at pictures from a distance. In 1965 Adam took his eleven plus. designers and writers that he admires. whose work he came to admire more and more. all his friends were going to the Comprehensive. The frantic swatting of
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. faceless brand of discipline. This wasn’t something which made him happy. He was practically part of the family. eating supper with them sometimes and giving his laundry to Adam’s grandmother to do. mucking about with the water.They have four nephews called Peter. This she did until the clothes he gave her become so dirty that she stopped. Paul. He passed to go to St. When he arrived there he found the place to be a “poor man’s public school” where all the teachers wore mortar boards and gowns and insisted on a regimental. While he was hunched over the kitchen table doing homework his friends from the Comprehensive were out on the turf with a ball and four jumpers plonked on the ground for goal posts. The “Stanley Spencer connection” is something which Adam owes to his early days in Cuckham. Whenever possible her endeavours to get personally involved with the artists. latin prose is a pointlessly hollow discipline that drops the brain in the well of despair. Cribs. In the two rooms of a Victorian dwelling with the shouting of close living families and the street games outside. Friday exams. For someone who lived in the city the light and the freshness of Cuckham together with contact with a real artist was a breath of invigorating air for the Adam’s spirit. Summer exams. Broadies notes. It mattered not that he was good at painting. “ﬁshing mad”. Marylebone Grammar School. The ﬁve boys would spend hours up in the Oval woods rampaging through the trees. tying feathers on hooks. descending in imaginary raids on the village.

Two of the school governors were M. meant that Adam received vicious kidney blows. Sportsmasters do not often give the same warmth of encouragement that is offered down the arts departments. Even though he excelled in these. these things are worth rebelling against. “There was a lot of ignorance in the school.the ﬂies of knowledge. “Rebel? There was no chance to rebel.s. He and his mother were over the moon. but those things are ignorance. and recommended that they should have Council accommodation.” One good thing which came from the move to the new school was that Adam and his mother were able to move house too. personal taboos. They moved onto the council estate. He started to work on his bedroom.
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. and cultural. I rebel against certain things. Art wasn’t taken seriously but sport was and this was something that Adam could excel in. for whatever reason. Basically I’m not a rebel at all. and the other a junior minister called Margaret Thatcher. He became Captain of the School Cricket team and a member of the Rugby and Gymnastics teams. It was Hogg who came and saw the conditions the he and his mother were living in.P. painting huge murals on the wall. Adam can only describe the experience as “incredible. For the ﬁrst time in his life he didn’t have to share a room with his mother. they were out of private rented accommodation. one called Quentin Hogg.” he says. Failure to perform out on mud.” “it was luxury”. There was an adventure playground on the estate and he painted that too. When he had ﬁnished that he painted a yellow submarine in the lavatory.

One of his drawings is still Mr. the style. the headmaster came and spoke to Adam. English and French at ‘A’ level and we’ll get you to Oxford. He constantly wore a green velvet jacket with green crushed trousers. in the last term of the ﬁfth.Two – ‘Completely zapped out by Cromwell’
There was a short respite from the rat race of cramming for ‘O’ levels in the Art Room.but he drank a lot. History and French and later dropped the French. He worked at his water colours and his line drawings. He was very camp with a shock of silver hair and spoke with a mild Irish accent. Sir. your grades are very good. This was a great experience for Adam and he grew to love the peaceful environment of the gallery. Adam decided to take Art at ‘A’ level.” Adam just looked at him and said. He was still visiting his father on Sundays. One day. “He had beautiful hands. The Art Master was known as ‘Arty’. These are the images that have recently occupied his mind and shaped the look of his performances.” He loved the ﬂamboyance of the French revolutions. Adam decided on Art. and the tap of encouragement was stopped. and he could really draw .” He took his few pupils to the Tate Gallery. “I was completely zapped out by Cromwell. In history he covered the Cromwell period and the European Revolutions from 1730 to Napoleon II. often taking him drawings. housed between Whitaker’s Almanac and Goebell’s Diaries in a large cabinet
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. “I’m doing Art. the excitement. They saw the Warhol exhibition together and Adam came to appreciate his work and the work of Eduado Paoloassi’ Then Arty caught pleurisy and died. He had wittled the system down to the only two things that interested him. and said “Goddard. Adam had ruled out the idea of University and had decided on Art School.” His headmaster didn’t speak to him ever again. Goddard’s proud possession. you’re going to do History.

He was the only one taking Art and so he shown into a turret high above the school. The nature of these Sunday visits changed as Adam grew older. “He rather liked Noël Coward then. a pen and ink version of the famous photograph of Noël taken when he was doing his ﬁrst smash run on Broadway.
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. however. he must know Vincent Square inch by inch. “I think he liked the Englishness. But he wasn’t interested. Before the results came out. “I used to take him all around Vincent Square.” says his father. Goddard sings “Mad dogs and Englishmen go out in the midday sun”. but his mind was on other things. The ﬁnal tem of school and the ‘A’ levels came.in their living room. Saturdays and holidays Adam would be standing in huge wellingtons. working on the boats in Regent’s Park. In the small circular room he was greeted by the sight of a set of stainless steel egg cups arranged on a table. Round and round we went.” During these session they ‘just talked cabbages and kings’. waltzing through with a packed folio and winning a place at the college. His father would take him to the local and he’d sit there and have a coke. Adam has added three mad dogs to the picture and an oasis. he had already been for an Interview at Hornsey School of Art. He wondered why it was those who set exams always pick out the most boring part of the discipline to be examined.” And then Mr. ﬁrst in the Ford and then in the Fiat. Now instead of visiting the zoo or castles his father gave him driving lessons. He doesn’t drive a motorbike. It’s a picture of Noël Coward standing in the middle of the Nevada Desert holding a teacup. he doesn’t like ﬂying. He would have made a damn ﬁne driver.

You do everything you can to seem as interesting and original as the lives of the masters that everyone talks about. He went to Art School as Stuart Goddard and came out as Adam Ant. everyone can see how you’re doing just by walking past your drawing-board. David Gibb. “He used to wear glasses the whole time and was just a quiet guy. In some ways the name was the least extreme of the changes. Art Schools are strange institutions. Most people come out very different from how they go in. He wasn’t pushy or overbearing. Most Art Schools are fairly crude places. sculpture. You can imagine. Most Art School people begin to write like that as they get more conﬁdent about making marks on paper. He generally dressed in denim and a T-shirt. Consequently friendship and camaraderie is important. If you look at Adam’s handwriting you’ll see that he’ll use a black pen and make sharp angular lines into fairly large characters. He was rather withdrawn and quite shy. then. As a reaction against the arty-farty image of the artist everyone trys to swear and drink a lot and treat their pictures as much like logs (and each other as lumberjacks) as possible. graphic design etc. Adam decided to study graphic design for three more years but over the next three years his ambitions changed. It happened to Adam. After the foundation course. everyone is there because they’re supposed to be talented but at the same time. that the same sort of thing can happen to your whole personality. Even your handwriting changes. ﬁne art. The foundation course is the students’ ﬁrst year of Art School where he or she can experiment in all the different courses offered. North London. In the ﬁrst couple of years he was hardly noticeable in the college. Adam enrolled for a year’s foundation course at the Hornsey School of Art.Three – Art school
At a converted school in Crouch End Hill. in Southgate near the Art School. He had left home for the ﬁrst time and was sharing a house with a fellow student.” He would always work
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Adam was busy channelling his own private fantasies into his illustration work. and the difference between exploitative sexual imagery in pornography and really creative and exciting sexual imagery in the world of art and literature. yet underneath there’s all the mischievous. He took several specialised courses on things like Futurism. Some of Jones’ images reappear on the badge Adam designed for the album Dirk Wears White Sox and perhaps most obviously Jones’ inﬂuence can be seen in the 1979 single Whip In My Valise. While the other graphic design students were ploughing through typographical ideas. He was never mad keen on typography. Peter Webb. But illustration was Adam’s passion. so fascinated was he by the subject. Never any trouble to the tutors. They would have seminars where they attempted to ‘come to terms with people’s sexual fantasies’ and the ways in which the repression of sexuality is imaged in fantasy. Feminism and the History of Art. For Adam a whole new world had opened and a new set of images and ideas. or in tight rubber clothes often holding whips. It is difﬁcult to say what makes them interesting. “I’m sure that his interest in it all. related to some sort of fantasy world of his which wasn’t obvious from knowing him. Peter Webb has written a respectable academic study of the Erotic Arts and has often been called to give evidence at trials on pornography. in his second year. decadent and perverse possibilities known to man. Allen Jones was for a long time an important inﬂuence on Adam’s work. perhaps it’s because they look so clean and neat. Jones pictures are very tight in style and look almost pornographic. perfect and well ﬁnished. Adam was particularly interested in the imagery that one chooses to be excited by. Adam was undoubtedly one of the most enthusiastic members of Peter’s course. Peter Webb gave his theory about Adam’s interest in these things. the bread and butter mainstay of graphic design. The course he found most interesting was the erotic arts course which was given by one of the tutors.very hard and get good grades for everything. They are usually of women in high black boots. He got very interested in the work of the artist Allen Jones. in some way. He was really interested in all this and it certainly wasn’t from a
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. He devoured book after book and looked at hundreds of slides.

They were kindred spirits though Danny had developed his individual stype more that Adam at that stage. Danny’s drawings were very powerful and disturbing. get drunk and fall over. Robin Banks. was still using his ﬁrst name. and the rest had been gigging with Bazooka Joe. It was on the foundation course at Hornsey that Adam met Danny Kleinmann who was to design the Ant logo. and the most lunatic of them all. go wild…Adam and I were
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.named after the comic strip character and the bubble gum. Both he and Danny were interested in the same part of the course . and Dan Barson.straightforward dispassionate and objective viewpoint. Danny was more of a personal illustrator going his own way rather than someone doing a course at college. then a much more independent type of spirit than Stuart and I think that’s possibly why Stuart got to know him and they became friends.illustration. Adam however.” It was an interest in the new style which was soon to be known as punk. Danny had been in a band since he was ﬁfteen. He was. Danny thought immediately of Stuart as a replacement on the bass. the bass player. someone who really likes Allen Jones is likely to have some real underlying personal interest. Willy Wurlitzer. “Just have a good laugh.” says Danny.” said one of the tutors from Hornsey. began to get more interested in recording than playing and was working as a tape operator in a studio. “One would have expected Danny more than Stuart to have ended up as Adam. “It was more like a friends’ band. The way in which Danny dressed and the way in which he behaved in college was much more that of an early popstar than that of Stuart.” Danny Kleinman. Willy Wurlitzer (also known as “Upright Willie” because of his preference for a certain type of piano). This band was made up of a “bunch of nutters” who had renamed themselves Danny Angel. You know. Mark Time. Stuart Goddard. It was a crazy band called Bazooka Joe . Then Pat Collier. “Thinking of the two of them.

who later became one of the punk “idols”.” He went along to the ﬁrst rehearsal and picked up the songs straight away. Willie had a small bedroom but an enormous organ and it was there that he and Danny wrote and arranged most of the Bazooka material. Before long the band was back on stage. Bazooka Joe had quite a following which rose to its peak when Adam was with them. ranging from Rock in A Flat to Nelly the Elephant. On stage they would appear to suddenly break out into a ﬁght and then blood would suddenly spurt from Stuart or Danny’s mouth. The songs were all predominantly comic. I’ve done a whole lot of reggae and a whole lot of soul. When the band had rehearsed it he mooted the idea to Danny that perhaps they should pretend to have heart attacks on the climax of the song on stage. Stuart began to play about with his name using a different name from gig to gig . But I’m buggered if I can do the pancake roll. the band decided
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. The Pancake Roll.the one that everyone remembers is “Eddie Riff”.good mates so I asked him. Adam’s obvious song writing ability soon began to take over however. The idea of staged ﬁghts and blood capsules was something Stuart had got from a now obscure sixties band called Vince Taylor and the Playboys.” It was good time rock’n roll. beginning with the lyric and going right through to what “act” they should do with it. The band included in their set Steele’s number Cannibal Pot. playing local pubs. On one celebrated occasion at Adam’s request. One of these very early songs was called Take Away Rock. He would bring whole ideas for a song to the rehearsal. Adam also brought along a song called Cardiac Baby. The lyrics ran: “I know how to rock. I know how to do it when there’s nobody in. Stuart’s childhood appreciation of Tommy Steele came to the front as well. I know how to swing. the type of well-crafted fun music of a band like Madness who later recorded Bazooka Joe’s Rock in A Fiat on their ﬁrst album.

shiny skirt And all the audience would be thinking “What’s this. at a nod from Adam the band dropped a key.to make the most out of this song. All the band looked on grinning underneath their pretended dismay at their guitarist’s incompetence. Danny began to cough and sputter. During intervals in the bands sets. needs a horse. The band’s “set” included Apache (a song which The Ants might well do now) Walk Don’t Run and some duets with Danny. when all the others were backstage at the Stapleton Hall Tavern near the Arts School where they used to play. a cowboy needs spurs. a bra. And the crucial point. The astonished band just stood and gaped as their lead guitarist vanished out the door. Suddenly. what’s this?”
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. The band didn’t really care for too much solo ambition so one night before they went on Adam whispered to all of them separately in the dressing rooms. Danny was rather fond of his lead guitar solos when he would come to the front of the stage and show off a bit. eventually sinking to the ﬂoor almost going purple in his pretend paroxysm of cardiac failure. shiny spurs Then Adam would do a verse of yodelling and continue with: A cowboy needs a bra. A cowboy needs a skirt. needs a horse a cowboy needs a gun. Danny and Adam would do “a turn”. For this they used accoustic guitars and sang songs like Four Legged Friend and A Cowboy Needs a Horse the lyrics of which were: A Cowboy needs a horse. When Danny’s solo came round he stepped forward and began to take up his Jimmi Hendrix pose. Danny was out of tune and was so annoyed that he missed his cue and was thus left silent and looking a bit of a fool. He picked Danny up in a ﬁreman’s lift and rushed him out of the pub to give air and artiﬁcial respiration. The audience who usually joined in the humour of the songs had gone quiet and before Danny knew where he was a worried looking six footer had jumped on the stage to help him.

thinking they were a load of tossers. The band was called The Sex Pistols.Sides. who later changed his name to Lester Square. whose songs and stage act made Adam rethink his whole attitude towards performing. He told Tom of his idea for a completely new band. The Sex Pistols fronted by Johnny Rotten. Martins School of Art in Charing Cross Road. He told Lester that the new band was to be called The B . smacked him against the back wall and said. “What did you say?” “Nothing. and told the other members of the band how impressed he was with their support band that night. Supporting them was a new group. who had previously played bass himself. Adam. making the whole
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. and Andy went and sat behind the table too.One night they played a gig at St. and became the founder of The Monochrome Set. so he phoned me because I wasn’t involved.’ Danny was very angry and immediately grabbed Rotten by his drapecoat. Lester liked the idea and so Adam placed an advert in Melody Maker to attract a bass player. was answered by Andy Warren. “causing sensations with audiences everywhere. They didn’t share his enthusiasm. and Adam met him outside the Marquee in Wardour Street for an addition.” said Rotten. Adam sat behind a table for Andy’s audition. The Ad. Adam was wearing pink Chelsea boots and a jacket which had belonged to David Bowie.” By the time he made his ﬁrst phone call to Lester. had already thought out the whole approach. and the aim was to be a “Losers” band. Adam. he took one look at Lester and thought he was a Ted. so named because of his teeth.” referring to Bazooka Joe. When Andy walked into the audition room. just to see where it got them. He wanted to do something totally different. But Adam began to lose interest in Bazooka Joe the more he began to think of new ideas. in characteristic fashion. were staging onslaughts throughout London in the smallest music venues. He phoned up his friend Tom.” Malcolm McLaren had been in the audience that night and had witnessed a scufﬂe between Danny Kleinman and Johnny Rotten. “He wanted to get away from what he was doing. Adam was joking the whole way through. had decided to become the front man and just to sing from now on. At the end of The Sex Pistols set Rotten had announced cynically over the microphone “And now for some real music.

at their home in Muswell Hill. They were like a mod band. Adam took to married life like pasta to the pot. This together with their interest in late ﬁfties and early sixties rhythm and blues music formed the style of the band.” Andy asked him what kind of music the band would be playing. which would later become the basis for The Ants music. North London. Adam met and fell in love with a fellow student called Carol Mills.affair “fun. He didn’t wear his glasses for the wedding. not akin to the recent manifestation. Even thought they were. Muswell Hill is an intensely suburban area – every street stiﬂing passers-by with clipped hedges and neat little gardens. and for her parents. for he had already adopted his now familiar use of contact lenses. a pre-Punk band. and they were married in the Parish of St. They settled down to life with Carol’s parents.
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. The band rehearsed at the ﬂat in Muswell Hill where Adam had moved when he married Carol. strictly speaking. The theme of the show was ‘kitsch’ – cheap ﬁfties ornaments and graphics. and designed some of the clothes The Ants wore on stage. While at Hornsey School of Art. during the day both of them spending their time at College together.” Adam and Lester had really got to know each other at college because of an exhibition they had done together. within sight of Alexandra Parade.Sides ever did was rehearse as they were always held back by the fact that they never had a drummer. She was blonde and slim with a lively sense of humour: she later changed her name to Eve. Adam proposed to her.Sides. Adam had begun to write songs to be introduced into the set. very frivolous. all the B . both for his young wife. they seemed more like one that had come after. and Adam replied. Eve wore the traditional bridal white and Adam wearing a double-breasted gangster suit from Burtons. a white carnation and a white shirt with an enormous collar encrusted by a striped huge knotted tie. “We will be playing the B sides to singles that were never even hits. She was a fashion student. Marylebone in the summer of 1975. For all the ideas and enthusiasm. the Mills. but much more stylish and “Art School”. Towards the end of his time with the B . He was an ideal husband. and then in the evenings Adam doing odd jobs around the house.

“But of course he was very eager to get on with really making something of his music. Music was pulling him. and he’d begun to get more and more interested in exploiting his musical ideas. The change was so total that his friend Danny could not even think of calling him Stuart anymore. He had to decide upon a subject for his degree thesis and went to Peter Webb to discuss it. and the illustrator that he was at College. and he went through this whole sort of rethinking of himself.” Adam stopped going to college completely and none of his friends saw him anymore. He began eating less and less. He had decided that he wanted to carry on his interest in the Erotics Course. His life was divided into two parts. and whenever Eve cooked anything. When he came back home he told Eve that he no longer wanted them to live together as man and wife and he moved a bed into another room and from that time on they lived separately within the same house. and he would happily cook and share the responsibilities of housework which is so often left solely and unfairly to the woman. Webb advised caution and tried to persuade him to ﬁnish the degree which he had begun. Meantime. Adam decided to use Allen Jones as his lynch-pin in a long essay about fetishism and bondage. and I think he must have decided to make a complete break. But back home in Muswell Hill. He brieﬂy discussed the matter with Peter Webb and the thesis began on good form. and had to undergo professional psychiatric treatment. One night he overdosed and was taken into hospital.Shopping was also Adam’s domaine. saying that he was considering giving up his thesis and leaving Art School altogether. at College Adam was entering his third and ﬁnal year. the young suburban husband doing the shopping and jobs around the house. She noticed him getting thinner and thinner. He wasn’t eating at all. He went and had a talk with Webb. Stuart
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. He had met Jones when he came to lecture at the College. he would use the excuse that he had eaten out. and in fact became medically ill with a disease known as anorexia nervosa. dealing in exciting images and watching the emergence of the new Punk style in London. Adam was now Adam. he had taken a huge quantity of tablets. the newly married husband had begun to act strangely.

he couldn’t work out who it was. He gave one of his friends an empty scrapbook and wrote inside the cover “This is for you to keep the cuttings that will make history. “He had left the world of College. Here was a man on the threshold of a career. “Hi Pete. when he saw a strange looking young man moving towards him. Adam had realized he had done the best thing at the right time. he turned and grinned.). Then the young man said. but only his ﬁrst name. Adam Ant (nearly B. which was Stuart Goddard and moved up to the new life which was Adam Ant. It was somebody completely different. The man was wearing heavy make-up dressed in black. This wasn’t the Stuart he knew. “It’s Stuart!” He talked enthusiastically about everything he was doing. Peter Webb was standing by one of the paintings. Everyone recognized that there was something much more real about Adam Ant.” Peter Webb just blinked. he really thought he’d got a good chance of getting into the music business.Goddard was not his real name.” Later that year he returned to College to see the degree exhibition of his friends. his mind a blank.”
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. He was very pleased with the way his new life was going. Peter Webb found conversation with him there at the Art School show very difﬁcult indeed.A.

So he zipped his eyes and mouth leaving a ﬂap to breathe through and waited. plonk down their instruments. At times he’d be genuinely one of the lads. Adam’s socialising had been at best. going down to the pub. he was in the wrong rehearsal room. Adam
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. No one had turned up. (The name had been inspired by an incident one night when Adam and a friend of his. They booked a rehearsal room at Scarf Studios in the East End of London. Hits. All the songs were to be original. Adam was also just entering his “total leather” period and so it was obvious from the start that the new band would not only sound different but look different. “Why Not?” and went round to Muswell Hill to hear the songs Adam had recorded on a four-track recorder.” And that’s how it happened. The new band got on faster than anyone who knew the B – Sides could have imagined. leaping and jumping around on stage. and at other times he’d be almost a recluse. no more B . known as “Our Kid” were on top of a Multi-Storey Car Park.he always rehearsed in his stage costume so that he could get used to the way it moved as he moved. It was soon after he had left Art School when no one had seen him for weeks that he phoned Lester Square out of the blue. people wandered in. having a laugh. totally absorbed in his work.sides but A sides. Adam arrived ﬁrst. The Kid looked down at the people below and said “Look at the Ants!” The B .Sides weren’t doing anything much so Lester thought. sitting waiting. He heard the door open. He was fully dressed in his leather outﬁt . He didn’t seem to be getting much reaction so he unzipped his eyes and peered out – it was the wrong band. The B – Sides had rehearsed for two months without playing a gig. The Ants began playing immediately. I want to start a group called The Ants. ﬁtful. Adam eventually found his band in another room a few doors down the corridor.Four – The girl in the shop
Throughout Art School. talking to no one. “Hey Lester.

The reason why Adam’s new band was immediately more successful than the other musical adventures he’d begun has a great deal to do with the Punk movement as it was at that time. It was an energetic time in London. leaving everything of Art School and his old life behind him. and that was that.began writing letters to people in the music business. A rather strange transition if you think of funk as being overembellished mish-mash of West Coast radio music which provided a back-drop to advertising. Punk is not an easy thing to write about because it was more a feeling than a set of ideas. It must be understood that what has come to be known as Punk was not a street movement at all. The band had all the energy of punk. it didn’t really matter if the music was ready. and Adam knew that he had to strike while the iron was hot. threw himself into getting gigs and a manager. It is interesting that the symbol that was taken by the media to mean Punk was the harmless safety pin. The atmosphere surrounding him was one which enabled him to strip everything back to bare essentials. The very
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. All of the young people in London who were most concerned with style moved directly from funk over to The Sex Pistols. and getting the band established. Adam’s impatience was not just blind ambition. He had to go professional immediately. He was determined not to waste a second. but indicative of the fact that he was there right at the beginning of Punk in the mainstream of the adrenalin that piledrived a new style into the nation’s consciousness. to use a whole new language of images and symbols which before had just simmered under rock music being marmalized by the over-dubbing of bland image upon bland image. Something new was happening to Adam and fortunately he was in London when something new was happening to rock music. What Adam got out of Art School then was not a degree given by the tutors. but a sense of style which had been bubbling under and came to fruition among his contemporaries. he was ready. but something which grew very much out of the art schools and the soul clubs that were in London at that time. more associated with babies’ nappies that with youth revolt. It was for this reason that Lester Square couldn’t stay with the Ants for more than a couple of weeks. because Lester had decided to complete his course at Art School.

this wasn’t true at all in the case of the people that actually created the style. The focus of the movement was not only the music clubs but also the fashion shops. and also society’s lap dog dressed in a dog collar and being led by the State. predominantly made from leather. that you were both a wild animal dressed in an animal skin like leather. So if you were to catch a bear and you wore a lion’s skin. Eventually. then you would probably have a pretty good chance. except of course that it’s in a much more self conscious way. Although Adam was poor and working class. A lot of people felt that the Punk movement was political. then you would take on some of the characteristics of that animal. follow in much the same vein. There is nothing political about the song Anarchy in the UK – it was a feeling. this is all the creation of an image. In ancient times. It was the shops that became the springboard for the new image and the testing ground for the new ideas. not unlike Cat Woman and Bat Man and all the rest of them that we ﬁnd in comic books. People were pretending to take on the world. The whole thing about Punk that interested Adam was the mixture of the aggressor and servant. When the Mods added more ﬂaps to their pockets and more buttons to the jackets. The Sex Pistols and Adam himself in actual fact were more of a challenge and more subversive in a way because they dealt with the gut feelings of the powerful individual. The bondage outﬁts that Adam was wearing. he was never drawn towards the dole queue bands that proliferated the Punk movement. The vaguer and more desperate images of Siouxsie and the Banshees. which live within us.word safety pin is paradoxical. they were making a statement about the whole absurdity of fashion. but with the animals of the mind and the spirit. of course. people in tribes believed that if you wore an animal skin. It took middle class kiddies like Tom Robinson to attack the establishment in language the establishment understood. this went to the absurd extremes of people wearing dog collars which actually says the opposite when you think about it. they were taking clothes to an extreme which then sent up everybody’s idea about what they should wear. Perhaps the most important shop of the period was Malcolm
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. Of course.

black or red eye make-up. He had ﬁrst seen Jordan modelling the shop’s clothes in various magazines and had been attracted by her appearance: enormous white bouffant hairstyle. ﬁshnet stockings. but in 1974 with the establishment of SEX. and foam rubber walls were covered in aerosol sprayed grafﬁti. plastic mini skirt covered in car stickers. Inside. This caused much hilarity in the shop. The whole shop felt decadent and daring. who had moved up from a sleepy south coast town to work there. London’s most extraordinary shop assistant that attracted Adam. It was like going to a live sex show. Adam Ant. It was the strangest of places to wander into and it attracted the strangest . At the time Adam wandered into the shop in 1976 Vivienne was busily working on the punk look.McLaren and Vivienne Westwood’s shop SEX. And it was Jordan. had marketed Teddy Boy fashions.people. a few years later it had been renamed TOO FAST TO LIVE. They in effect had created the punk image. and Malcolm was managing that most notorious of groups. Finchley. covered in cryptic messages. Signed. then known as LET IT ROCK. No one had the slightest idea who this Adam Ant character could be until Michael Collins. Situated in London’s Kings Road. rubber clothes and bondage trousers hung from chicken wire. it had. heavy. TOO YOUNG TO DIE and sold bikers’ chains and fringes.
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. The shop itself was painted an extravagant garish pink on the outside and had lavish window-boxes crammed with fake mink. Chelsea. They were arriving at the rate of three or four a day. Malcolm and Vivienne had ﬁnally hit on the idea that would not only create an extraordinary popular fashion but would also revolutionise a generation. An old jukebox in the corner drummed out ﬁfties music. The Sex Pistols. black leather thigh length boots. an old hospital bed covered in a rubber sheet stood in the corner.and most fascinating . rubber curtains hung from windows. It boldly displayed its name in padded pink letters above the door SEX. Over the next three weeks these copies began arriving at the shop addressed to Jordan. Adam tore out one of these pictures and xeroxed dozens of copies. Firstly it had attracted an astonishing looking young lady called Jordan. Postmarked. smothered in lipstick kisses. since the early 70’s been a fashion focal point: in 1971 the shop.

” replied Adam. “Where do you live?” he asked. “So you’re Adam ant!” said Jordan. “Yes. Adam shrugged his shoulders and picked up a t-shirt. then replied “Finchley.” Whereupon Michael erupted into screams of laughter. began to have his suspicions about the mysterious customer with dark curly hair who seemed to have started frequenting the shop. It was to be the beginning of a very fruitful relationship. Adam paused for a moment. and while the laughter from the street continued to rock the shop. where do you live?” More hysteria. So when Adam next came into the shop Michael approached him.
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. “Why.who also worked at the shop. and Michael made for the door. tried it on.

that he was at all involved with the new music in London at the time. Even though Falcon was obviously on the other side of the fence
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. he was interested in the people milled around it. Up Yours! was a send up of the kind of things that were coming out of SEX. They got talking. although he wasn’t interested in the things on Poly’s stall. Adam was obviously attracted to him because he was promoting the gigs at The Man in the Moon and he was hoping that they would play there. the singer from X-Ray Spex. the band in the cafeteria
In fact.’ Her song. the manager of X-Ray Spex. ‘She was the ﬁrst artist to dress up in different clothes for every concert. The band was in its early stages and the stall was a kind of centre for getting some of the ideas and seeing the style beginning to work. Adam was a visitor to the Beaufort Market and. Adam made it clear that he was looking for a manager. heavy bondage in black. She was really the originator of that aspect of the new wave which has only now ﬁnally appeared because everybody else was going around in sex and violence clothes. That was her version of the new wave. was there. It was on one of these visits he met Falcon Stewart. Poly made the jewellery. Oh Bondage. She was selling clothes and accessories and lots of plastic knick-knacks. Poly ran a stall in the Beaufort Market with which she shared her name. wear different hats and turbans. You wouldn’t have known from looking at Falcon. the ﬁrst time Adam and the Ants played before anybody at all. or at least to point out that they shouldn’t be taken so seriously. Poly Styrene.Five – The band in the bedroom. an ex ﬁlm maker. X-Ray Spex and the stall were started at the same time. was in Adam’s bedroom in Muswell Hill. who was also serving on the stall. Falcon was on his list. It was a very colourful stall situated between The Man in the Moon and a row of shabby little shops.

who were starting to be successful and since they were the ﬁrst band he’d ever managed he was still ﬁnding his way. He had even typed out a little programme of the numbers they were going to do and then a sheet with the lyrics on. His was an image. and even if it did. But what happened was that lots of kids got involved just in the look. people wouldn’t understand it let alone buy it. Falcon could see from his performance that he had ‘picked up on it in a very real sense.’ There was one song that he particularly liked. Falcon was committed to X-Ray Spex.’ But Falcon did not agree to be manager at that time because Adam was using the black leather bondage image very heavily. in a slightly more tortured kind of artistic sense. it was called Deutscher Girls.
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. ‘He was very serious and genuine and that is something that I ﬁnd attractive because he was direct and he was genuinely trying to do something and he was putting a lot of effort into it. But it didn’t have that much to do with music. Not being actually a teenager any more and having been too Art School he found it very fascinating. Falcon didn’t believe that this was a saleable commodity. a headline-grabbing operation.’ Falcon said Malcolm knew that the whole thing was something that the establishment would get very worried about. For Adam it wasn’t fancy dress at all. nothing wrong with that. He took it for real. nor that it would transfer successfully on to record. He realised this was the one way to get at the British Establishment really at it – which in fact worked like a treat. Adam booked a rehearsal studio called The Alaska. He understood that where nobody else did. A sensation. but it may as well have been fancy dress. ‘It was the nearest to being a song. ‘Adam went along with the Malcolm McLaren trip. They did six numbers and Flacon was impressed. Also. He wanted to launch his career very formally.Adam asked for an audition. Falcon agreed to come along and see the band play.’ The whole thing about punk was a stance. later recorded in Jubilee.– Poly Styrene and X-Ray Spex being the complete extreme from what Adam was interested in . a pose which took the form of sexual aggression. with everything properly organised. More with Adam than anything else.

The next few days were spent in frantic preparation for The Ants’ ﬁrst gig which was booked for May 10th in the cafeteria of the ICA. They played one number. He was totally unrecognisable in it. The management had obviously been expecting some kind of folk band to provide a polite ceilidh while the punters for the gallery drank their coffee and tucked into vegetarian salads and wholemeal open sandwiches. There was no way that the band could be allowed to beat up the canteen with their music. Black leather from head to foot. He took his art with a very big capital A. The panic nearly set in when a hoard of desperate looking punks turned up in the foyer to see them. an art gallery and theatre. They weren’t too interested in sitting at the benches nibbling rabbit food. now with The Monochrome Set had left the Band. Mark Ryan joined as guitarist only on the day before the première. This made things worse because the ﬁrst Ants audience weren’t too interested in browsing through the racks of feminist and agit prop literature while they waited either. Adam had phoned them up and told them The Ants were a country and western group so he had managed to get the booking. The management delayed the start of the gig. Before they went on Adam went up to Dowie and asked. On the 9th they got a replacement guitarist who didn’t even last a whole day. The audition at Alaska had been on the 7th. Even his head was covered in what is now known as a ‘Cambridge Rapist Mask’ with a ﬂap for the nose and a zip across the mouth. Beat my Guest and were thrown out. John Dowie and Victoria Woods were doing a show in the theatre at the time. ‘Is there any way we can play in the theatre during your interval?’ Dowie agreed. He was struggling for his medium. Adam had got himself a complete punk-bondage outﬁt. The day of the ICA première came and they turned up with their meagre equipment and set it up in the canteen. And because of that he was very extreme. The serving ladies looked with horror as they began to move the tables back to set up the drum kit. The next day Lester Square. ‘There was no way I was going to say “no” to someone dressed head to foot in black leather with several hundred
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. His graphics. Everyone was upset. To him it was an art form he took very seriously. He was drawing very heavily on the type of Allan Jones image he has studied in Art School.

Dowie watched the show from the wings and when Adam came off dripping with sweat and tearing off his mask. The next night. It went well. Even though he hadn’t become manager. the months and even years ahead would be full of all kinds of criticism and ‘slagging off’ and times when it seemed impossible to continue. regardless of the costs” And. the band were on at The Man in the Moon supporting X-Ray Spex.
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. But that’s what you ﬁnd in the most original people. Although Falcon wasn’t interested in the type of image Adam was using. Adam leaping about and pumping up the songs with unsurpressed energy. ‘And what am I supposed to do for your encore?’ The ICA returned to its former self. in fact. Totally unidirectional. in a most ruthless kind of way. He could see that Adam had something. Dowie and Woods ﬁnished their ﬁrst half and ﬁnally the première of the Ants took place. What they do is they feel so strongly that they just do it. Falcon decided then to keep an eye on Adam for the future.’ Everyone settled down to wait and the Institute of Contemporary Arts continued to ply its bean shoots and date tarts. They can withstand all kinds of criticism and slagging or disappointments. Dowie said to him. They have that ability and that total stability to totally concentrate. He felt that he ‘had an exceptional quality.punks behind him. totally dedicate themselves to one thing. They are extremists in ways. he had decided to put them on after all. otherwise they couldn’t survive.

crawling across the ﬂoor. It was an ordinary pub audience and they were somewhat disconcerted to say the least! And the equipment was so bad that some poor bloke had to sit onstage and holding two wires together to keep the electricity ﬂowing. and on one celebrated occasion a pompous TV presentator had asked her what she was going to do for Christmas. which I think … “Jordan” or “Send a Letter to Jordan” or something. ‘I’m going to lay naked in bed eating bananas. kill my mum and dad. She liked the fact that he’d asked her to be manager of the group because of the way she looked rather than going for the
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. The pub put a board outside announcing which bands were playing and about forty people ﬁltered down to the basement.” It was the sort of thing Adam loved. and if I get drunk enough. so she was impressed by him. They did it three times. He had high hopes that she’d agree to manage the band after she’d seen them play.the rest of the audience had given up in despair. wrapping himself in the microphone lead. And then the equipment blew up!” By this time only Jordan and her friends were left . apart from her inﬂuence on punk fashions she was also a friend of The Sex Pistols. She was interviewed on TV a number of times. Among them were Jordan and Steve from The Banshees. The set started and Adam began to terrorise the audience. ‘This bloke came out with this blinking leather mask on and these pants … and they did one song. a red hot media property.Six – The man in the moon
Adam asked Jordan to The Man in the Moon gig. he wasn’t bothered about the others. But it was Jordan that Adam wanted to impress. Something to do with me anyway. and she’d replied. Adam came on wearing his black leather mask and black leather briefs over his trousers (just as The Slits used to wear their knickers over their jeans). Jordan was a bit of a celebrity in her own right at this time. grabbing people by the ankles. Jordan remembers the gig well. Just as Adam was impressed by Jordan.

She felt it was important for them to have money in hand at the end of each day to keep morale and energy high. known as ‘The Kid’. Jordan got a friend of hers that ran the Screen on the Green in Notting Hill to ask for help.but the terrible truth of the matter was that it cost more to hire a piece of rehearsal space than the group could earn doing a gig. She had never done anything like this before. So with admirable energy she was on the phone to people like Dave Woods.he looked the part and acted the part. She was dead right. And he agreed to letting the band store their equipment at the cinema and rehearse in it all night . Although she never saw herself as a ﬁnancial manager. Jordan’s ﬁrst job was to get them the gigs. The Man in the Moon was the lowest of the low in the gig hierarchy and the sooner she got them out of that rut the better. ‘he went berserk!’ she remembers. and then the lot of them went off to a friend’s house to have a cup of tea and discuss plans for the future. Andy Warren. Jordan also took over the money side of the group. Next on the list of priorities was rehearsal space. It was vitally important for a band to rehearse in order to get their set together and get the gigs . but she reckoned it was a question of having a bit of sus and your head screwed on the right way. Paul Flanagan. Unlike Falcon she was convinced that Adam was a ‘real saleable commodity’ .free! So the four members of the band .and Jordan began rehearsing there. ever resourceful. who ran March Artists. I’ve got this band …’ And that was that. and she’d talk them into giving Adam their support slots. Most of the equipment they used was hired. and she was ideal for the job. but Paul had his own drumkit
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. vocals. And then there were the other bands Jordan knew like The Banshees and The Slits.Adam. drums. To this day Adam is unaware of this.average common or garden type of manager who knew all the ins and outs of the music business. When she told him she’d take the job. She would says: ‘I’m Jordan. Mark Ryan. But. Money was pretty low at the time but she cushioned the band from the paltry sums they were earning by giving them her share. on his lead Richenbacker. Leapt around like a lunatic. bass . The Ants were almost instantly jumping queues and getting to gigs at places like The Vortex.

She became a sort of acting manger. Oh God.’ remembers Jordan. and it was on one of these nights that they wrote ‘Lou’. And that was how Jordan came to sing with the band. She insisted. they played a gig virtually every week.
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. ‘When I think back on it I think. The Rosebuck. Adam of course sticking to his coke. largely thanks to Dave Woods who ﬁxed them up with venues through March Artists. he stubbornly refused.) ‘It was quite a special time. While the band rehearsed in the cinema. But Jordan’s style of lyric writing was very different to Adam’s. and Jordan indulging in her customary drop of alcohol. They would work on the lyrics of songs here. Adam and Jordan would go up to the local. and he insisted there was no way he could sing ‘Lou’.which was a great asset (In fact the Banshees who didn’t have a drumkit borrowed it for months on end. singing as well as managing. From that day onwards she would be totally involved. so they came to a compromise: they would both sing it. if that energy was still there!’ Things were deﬁnitely going very well for them and. which was later to be recorded for the John Peel Show.

It was to be called Jubilee.
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. the Royal Shakespeare Company were doing a production of Measure for Measure. Derek Jarman. for instance. In W H Smith’s stores everywhere there was a blank left on the No 1 slot of their charts. a London ﬁlm director. He had seen her by chance when she had ﬁrst come up to London from Seaford. kids who were modelling themselves on people like Jordan. This latte slogan did not refer. of course. A month or so later he met her at a party and ﬁnally spoke to her. Siouxsie Sioux and Adam. She was looking like a sort of ice-cream lady gone hopelessly mad with a bouffant hairstyle like a vast strawberry ice-cream and a mini skirt covered with white car stickers. It got everywhere. Derek had begun making the ﬁlm mainly about Jordan. Overall punk was the biggest thing since Beatlemania. He was in Victoria Street when he was stopped dead in his tracks by the vision of Jordan coming towards him. leather trousers. One afternoon Derek was going down the King’s Road looking in some of the ‘punk’ shops and reading the fanzines. was planning a short super 8 movie. He had dark hair. He was completely stunned. When it got to the line ‘Marrying a punk my lord is pressing to death’ the line got the biggest laugh it had received for four hundred years. but to the record by the Sex Pistols which rose to No 1 despite the silence of the BBC. In Stratford-Upon-Avon.Seven – The Queen’s Jubilee
In the summer of 1977. and a great rip in his shirt which revealed the word FUCK cut into his back with a razor blade. One meant that people wrote things on the pavement: ‘Royal Walkway’ and the other that people wrote on the wall: ‘God Save the Queen’. Johnny Rotten. Everyone in Britain stared at the outrageous looking kids. Now he was beginning to make a ﬁlm with her. two sensations caught the imagination of the people: the Queen’s Silver Jubilee and punk. to the head of State herself. Suddenly he caught sight of a young man walking in front of him. He was researching the ﬁlm.

he was convinced that he was a natural actor. just two small cameras. I saw this really great looking kid walking along the street who looked really very good for the ﬁlm. the way he looked and moved.’ Jordan looked at him unsurprised and said. When Derek looked at the video he could see that Adam had something very special. He considered plucking up enough courage to ask him but when it came to it he just let him go walking through the shoppers. Derek made videos of Siouxsie and the Banshees.’ The writing of the script for Jubilee was total chaos but this meant that Derek could write in a bigger part for Adam because he was obviously so good on ﬁlm. It was when they were ﬁlming a scene with Carl Johnson and Ian Charleson on the roof. Wayne County and the Electric Chairs. He was making videos of a few other bands and he decided to include Adam and the Ants. Instead of forcing him to do what I wanted. ﬁnding the very serious speech very funny. Chelsea and Adam and the Ants all in the same afternoon. ‘Well we’re looking for someone at the moment to play the popstar” Derek told Jordan. ‘Well. he’s in this band and I’m in it as well – I’m his manager. he’s Adam’ Jordan decided immediately to use the band in the ﬁlm. I just let it drift the way he was doing it. Derek visited Jordan to talk about the type of people he wanted to ﬁnd for the ﬁlm. then Derek said. Adam was just supposed to stand there and be lectured at. Jarman recalled one incident when Adam played absolutely against the whole thing. by saying “Do it again until you get it right”. one doing close-ups and the other doing long shots. It actually turned out to be one of the
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. ‘And had his shirt ripped open with FUCK written on his back. The videos were done very simply. as one could have done. It wasn’t Adam’s scene at all but his laughter stole it. dodging through the trafﬁc and away. Instead he burst into giggles over the whole thing.Jarman thought he looked great and would be very good for the ﬁlm. ‘He would never do what I expected which was actually rather good. the type of attitude in his face. He upstaged both the professional actors and they had the good grace to let him. ‘And I know just the sort. The whole process was cheap and cheerful.’ Derek went on to explain to her what it was the ‘boy’ had.

He turned out to be a real comedy character and one of the people Adam has most enjoyed working with. Unfortunately for Paul it was the end of the road for him with The Ants. designed a lot of the sets. most of the ﬁlming being done in Jarman’s warehouse. If you look closely at the scenes of the band playing in Jubilee. should have been in it too. to play a gig supporting a band called Desolation Angels. He brought with him the guitarist from Desolation Angels. dreamed up the name and was the main force behind it. the drummer. Paul Flanagan. but Jarman couldn’t afford to bring them down from Manchester and put them up in hotels. The only person who wasn’t totally happy was Adam’s associate from the beginning. which was also his home. rather unusually. It was very much a family affair. and stayed with the Ants as drummer for two and a half years. Dave Barbe. ‘We’ve got to nick him. The Buzzcocks. led by their drummer. however. After they had seen them play. even though Kenny. chipping in and entering into the fun that everyone experiences who works with Derek.best scenes in the ﬁlm because Adam had turned it completely on its head.’ He was ‘quite a rock ’n’ roll’ drummer then’ but Adam and Jordan felt they could change him because he was young and enthusiastic. Adam had returned to his Art School. who The Ants worked with at the Marquee. They both had pangs of guilt about asking him to leave the band because without him it would be bound to fold. Jarman felt that Adam approached the whole thing with a degree of scepticism which was probably right. Adam and Jordan already had their eyes on a new drummer. Standing in. Consequently. didn’t turn. When
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. The Angels were a band. Dave joined. He had formed it. just a few incidental glimpses of them on a TV screen. the drummer. you will notice that seated behind the drumkit is Kenny from the Banshees. At the beginning of June. who couldn’t decide if she wanted to be in the ﬁlm or not. Siouxsie Sioux. the Banshees part ended up being pushed to the back. Jordan covered her mouth with her hand and whispered to Adam. Adam was always there when he was writing a new scene.

but Jordan got out the scissors. haircut tomorrow. Somehow she thought it would be very romantic. Derek told her that she was going to be playing a waitress who gets assaulted. Paoula. One day they were sitting talking. he’s laying on a mattress when she takes off his glasses and says very simply: ‘You’re beautiful. But this was in the same scene that did bring out Adam’s natural ‘glamour’. Adam leapt about doing handsprings the lights and mirrors ﬂashing. When they walked in there was a fantastic set already on the stage. But because of copyright reasons they weren’t allowed to switch it on and use it even though it would looked great behind The Ants.he joined he was called John Becket. Adam. but changed his name ﬁrst to Johnny Germany and then to Johnny Bivouac. They had hired the theatre for the day in which to record The Ants. Then some of the theatre technicians happened to wander in and someone happened to slip them ten quid and suddenly the whole thing lit up and began revolving and they had an unbelievably expensive shot in the lenses. The ﬁrst thing Jordan said to him was Right. One of the actresses. Suddenly the thought of plastic surgery didn’t seem so appealing. the cameras rolling and then Adam dislocated his knee. But when it actually happended she got showered with tomato ketchup. was actually brought to tears over this. The Ants began to play ‘Plastic Surgery’. Toyan was playing a head-shaven character called ‘Mad’. One of the high points in the ﬁlm is when The Ants play on the stage at the Drury Lane Theatre. when Derek said to Toyah:
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. It was in Jubilee that she sang for the ﬁrst time. The ﬁlm was enormously hard work for everyone in it. often working long into the night. It was for a rather awful musical playing on there at the time but the set was a magniﬁcent contraption of spinning mirrors. and like Adam was just beginning a career that lead to hit singles and popular success. Derek and Toyah.’ Toyah Wilcox was in Jubilee too. When she started working on the ﬁlm she had long hair and ﬂaired jeans. It wasn’t all glamorous. dying gracefully with her best proﬁle to the camera.

they hadn’t got the money to get a photobooth.‘Why don’t you sing something?’ Toyah had never thought of singing at all but Derek said it would be a good idea if she had a go as she wasn’t in a band or anything.
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. One of them took photos of him while the other raped and murdered him.’ Jubilee didn’t end how it should have done because the last scene. The song was ﬁnally put in the scene where Adam makes his big entrance to this prophetic announcement. ‘The new Garbo . involving Adam was dropped. Derek was very enthusiastic about the scene which was to take place in a tube station but in the end he had to ditch it for three reasons. In the end. After that last night’s ﬁlming Adam went home to visit his parents where they were living as caretakers in Chelsea. I said “Toyah get up and sing”’ So Adam went away and spent the weekend writing a song for her and rehearsing it. He thought it would nice if other people in the ﬁlm did a bit as well as Adam ‘And since it seemed to be the order of the day that anyone could get up and sing. On Monday morning they ﬁlmed it. The scene involved him being attacked by two policemen in a photobooth. He brought him inside thinking he’d fallen off a motorbike but it was just ‘Kensington Gore’ and exhaustion from ﬁlming Jubilee. and everyone was amazed because it was ‘actually rather good’. and three. Adam ﬂatly refused to do the scene. He knocked on the door and his father came down to open it. it was late at night and all the tube stations had shut down. But Adam didn’t fancy this at all.this kid’s going to be Number One. two. as he was covered in blood. Mr. they made it up as they went along and Adam got covered in stage blood.’ Jarman was always convinced that Adam would be ‘The top of the hit parade’ – ‘It was just a matter of time. One. Goddard just stood there and looked at him.

was Stephanie Gluck. although in fact she couldn’t play a note. it stained them with the mark of poseurs. and asked him to go and see Stephanie there. So guy gave Adam the address of a clothes shop in South Moulton Street called Browns. something against which it is very hard to defend yourself. People naturally presumed that Adam was a rich boy of traditional English stock. slumming it in punk. un a pub and he said to her. One of the people who he did meet at this time. He said that he’d sent a guy to see her. They were invited by Andrew Logan. the whole place dripped with money. Guy Ford. trading an expensive account for cheap effect. She’s full of enthusiasm for everything. who has been described as ‘one of the four women in Adam’s life’. This wasn’t in the long run. This was the shop was where ‘the very best people’ obtained their glad rags. to play at a party of his in his warehouse down by the Thames. the artist. This was his introduction to the ‘Chelsea Set’ a group which has always existed on the intellectual.Eight – The Creep
Because of the ﬁlm Adam met a whole lot of new people. and punctuates her conversation with howls of laughter. ‘Would you like to be in a ﬁlm?’ They were looking for an all girl band to be in one of the scenes. He asked her if she played any instruments ‘Oh yes!’ she said. only the personnel changes. Stephanie met one of the producers of Jubilee. who was doing all the music.
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. a good thing for the band for. ‘Ethnic’ hippie-type dress with long hair. She’s naturally outrageous and the greater part of what she says is performed as if by characters in a very romantic movie. trendy side of London. Adam walked into the shop. however useful and interesting you were. This is part of the reason why the rock press pilloried him and made him a ﬁgure of ridicule. however. standing there he saw a girl dressed in a long. the contrast with SEX was almost entertaining.

really cute. but he did. with the sound of chains. where was it? ‘Oh. then he asked if she had a guitar. She walked in. all this wonderful power and energy. although of course she didn’t. unfortunately I lent it to someone and can’t get it back until tomorrow. ‘Play that. Call after call had produced nothing so she went off to the warehouse empty handed. ‘Oh. She wondered why the guitar had six strings and she only seemed to have ﬁve ﬁngers. ‘Oh yes. rattling.’ I thought to myself. at ﬁrst looking like just a black streak. He could see that it wasn’t really worth him playing it again. As her eyes organised the ‘symphony’ of bondage in front of her she could see that his legs and arms were wrapped about with black chains. little and cute.’ ‘He was that dynamic. She looked up at Adam.’ she thought to herself. make-up all down his face. yes’ she said. Adam looked for the guitar. but he’s really small. She agreed. At the end of her tether she gave in and said. in her turn looked at the ‘apparition’ that was coming through the door. and National Health glasses.’ she said.Stephanie. ‘I can’t play
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. ‘How does it go again?’ she said. Adam asked her to meet the other girls that were in the band at a rehearsal booked for that evening in a warehouse. Stephanie placed her hand around the neck of the guitar. Adam looked upon her inefﬁciency with disdain. She wandered across in her rather nice pink dungarees and pink T-shirt. and there was Adam in his black leather. Stephanie got home as soon as she could and phoned everyone she knew who had ever seen a guitar. and three girls looking much like Adam. ‘How long have you been playing?’ said Adam. and Stephanie wished that somehow she wasn’t wearing pink dungarees. trying to get each one of her ﬁngers on to each of the strings. I think.’ he said. ‘I’m bound to get the sack. ‘just because he’s in the shop. he had one red eyebrow and one black one. was there a convenient hole into which she could drop? Adam gave her a guitar that was lying around and then picked up his own and played a fast set of chords very loudly. a little while.

and went home.’ said Adam ‘because you’re going to mime.can I?’ ‘It doesn’t matter. that he was a hard worker ‘but such a wally’ there was no doubt that he was good at what he did. one of only two in the world. ‘Creep. rehearsing his numbers.’ Stephanie was furious with him ‘From that moment I thought he really hated me’. she really got on well with the other girls in the band. trousers.’ A couple of days she got a phone call. get big record deals. Toyah. it was Adam saying ‘Can I come and see you?’ ‘If anyone I hate that much wants to come and see me he must be worthwhile’. invited him over to her house that Friday.’ Next day she bought black string vests. Fridays nights in most Jewish houses is something which can’t be abused. She didn’t know that it was a very rare and expensive guitar. chains. ‘What have I done now?’ she thought to herself. She walked into the warehouse that night with the guitar proudly in her hand. When they had ﬁnished she watched Adam going through his paces. By the end of their evening’s miming they had decided they were going to be a rock band. Adam arrived.’ she thought. ‘What a creep. the whole family is together for the Kiddush. go on tour … so they decided to kick out the vocalist. wanker. leather jacket. She called on a friend and persuaded him to lend her his guitar. in his customary fashion. Everyone turned and looked at her. Adam ﬁnished his rehearsal and Stephanie spoke to him. aghast at the gleaming pedigree. and replace her with Stephanie. She did have to admit to herself. even if he was a creep. and then. the lot. He was reluctant to do so but once she had told him what had happened he felt obliged. but I thought you were very good – at what you did!’ ‘Uh?’ said Adam. without thinking. she thought to herself. wally. As the evening wore on things got better. As the door opened on the sight of a young punk
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. however. ‘I know I’ve been a pain in the arse. full of energy. Stephanie thought him a real creep ‘because he was so fucking cool.

’ One of the scenes of Jubilee is set in a weird set of catacombs where a disco is taking place. he’s not one of those who goes ‘bang. and the ‘food of love’.’ He started climbing the wall with his legs. After dinner they went up to Stephanie’s bedroom to talk about the band. in fact. While he’s making love he expresses how he feels about it while it’s happening. and he really gives. ‘It was like – you know how amazing sex is supposed to make you come out of your shoes? – like in the ﬁlms – you know when they kiss the one they love. and Jarman seeing the opportunity kept the cameras running. being able to do something as silly as that. and ‘That was it – love. Adam was made very angry by the ﬁght and he went rushing out. very energetic. A ﬁght breaks out. ‘Where the Hell was he?’
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.’ she thought. It was. ‘Three hours with Adam will last you a week. and thank you very much’ he either talks or sings about it. They sat there for three hours. it was his way of showing me what he really felt. She knew he wasn’t cut out to be a one girl man ‘because he’s got a hell of a lot to give. And then he took off his glasses.’ Suddenly. very inspiring. a real ﬁght. I never realised. You can tell whether people are takers or givers and he’s a giver. but within an hour Adam had completely charmed her mother. that’s how they know. It was Guy Ford. they got up from the ﬂoor where they were talking about music and took to the bed.’ He was a neat gentleman. Stephanie followed him and they went off to ﬁnd a coffee house. it doesn’t come across as stupid. Had this vision of being in one of those ﬁlms because the sex was so good it was making him climb up the wall. ‘He really does like sex in a big way. That’s what’s good about Adam. It’s the only time it’s ever happened in my life when someone takes off their glasses. ‘Oh so handsome. their extended coffee break was interrupted by a scream from across the restaurant. Stephanie felt as if it was just like in the ﬁlms when he did his. It’s very hard work when you go out with Adam. Both Adam and Stephanie were in this scene.’ Stephanie didn’t mind that Adam was often involved with several girls all at the same time. The task seemed impossible.in chains and make-up her mother’s mouth opened in astonishment.

to see what the French boys do.’ For Adam the song was a kind of joke born out of his miserable room and lack of money which was tying him down. and the violets he also named Dennis. Instead he bought a pot of violets and a goldﬁsh. In this room he wrote a song called Young Parisian. The mark of a good song is when you are on the ﬂoor crying with laughter. He wanted to go to Paris’ Unfortunately he had no money at all. He refused to sign on the dole. There has always been a lot of humour involved in the writing. There was no possibility of his being able to travel abroad. ‘Come up and hear what I’ve recorded. Young Romans. Adam had decided at this time that the ideal food for him was Ready Brek and jelly. They were to be called Young Berliner.Adam was living in Putney at this time in the house of friend from his Art School called Chris Brown. Whenever he moved he would begin decorating his room immediately. Adam’s room was like a small box. just a mattress on the ﬂoor and his tape recorder at which he worked every day. and when it was furnished he moved out. always red jelly.
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. and jelly itself is remarkably nutritious. All day long he would be dashing down to Chris’s room saying. so instead he wrote the song: ‘I want to go to Paris with you. The fridge was constantly jam-packed with red jelly. Young Viennese. This became his sole staple diet and Adam became very ill. It was cheap and took hardly any time to prepare. The room was sparse. Ready Brek contains all good natural stuff. The house was ‘full of weirdos’ and whenever Stephanie visited him she would dash up the stairs to avoid being accosted by the other inhabitants. The songs didn’t get written. the goldﬁsh he named Dennis. neither did he get to Paris. Adam gave names to everything in his room. Adam had never been abroad and sitting in his small box in Putney he began to want to travel.’ He played Chris. Adam talked to Chris about his plans to make a whole set of songs like Parisians.

‘I’m ever so sorry. they laughed at their luck. who were playing with them but didn’t have the space to take the band as well. they loaded their equipment into The Banshees van. and the run down of the set they were going to play. and phoned a mate who worked for Haringey Council. Then someone had a brainwave.Nine – Car trouble
It would be a while before Jubilee was released so meantime the band decided to return to some solid gigging. in her best manager’s voice. when suddenly the inside of the van began to ﬁll with smoke (the engine was inside!) and choking and coughing they had to abandon it once and for all in an underpass twenty miles from their destination. guitars ﬁrmly wedged under arms.’
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. as she signalled the band to get in. and one screeched to a halt. but courageously Jordan stuck out her thumb.’ Jordan commanded them all. A while later a van arrived – HARINGEY SOCIAL SERVICES was writ large on the side. The rest of ’77 would be sent travelling up and down the country to far ﬂung music venues trying to establish a hardcore Ant following. accompanied by tiny frogs who were moving from one pond to another they laughingly ﬁlled the van with the little petrol they had accumulated. ‘That’s it. they racked their brains for a way of getting there. Clutching their guitars. Saturday morning came. to the fastest part of the motorway. The Ants were booked to play Rebecca’s a large music venue in Birmingham. but it was the decrepit old van that had the last laugh. ‘Get out!’ And with one hour to go she had made them run up the road. Juggernauts were whizzing by at 100 mph.’ said Jordan to the driver. Loading it up. They set off again. On one Saturday. which they hadn’t entrusted to Siouxsie’s lot. The band had to leap out and run across the nearby ﬁelds in search of petrol. It broke down – just futted and stopped on the motorway. There’s rather a lot of people here. On the way back it started raining and.

this was outrageous. Once again they were on with The Banshees and once again it was a nail biting journey. The bouncers were abusive and the manager tried to make them pay £90 for the hire of the microphones. They had driven down to Portsmouth and just turned right? It hadn’t occurred to them they could go diagonally. and played another good set. There were ten bands on the bill.’ So. where do you want to go?’ ‘The Bullring. on ﬁrst. i. Time was getting short. One of the best gigs they’d done to date. Jordan was more than unwilling to pay such an extortionate sum. and they were wandering about lost in the West Country in a caravan. particularly as Dire Straits the band who were on with them. and more affectively. The group arrived at Rebecca’s ten minutes before they were due to go on. picked up the microphone and announced: ‘We’re pulling out because of the management’s ridiculous
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.‘That’s nothing – I’ve had fourteen in this cab. marched up to the DJ. and The Ants were right at the bottom. ‘Who are you then?’ one of them asked. And considering the average wages the band was getting for a gig was £50. didn’t seem to be paying anything. And that blew it. Adam always left it to Jordan to deal with the aggro – she gave as good as she got.’ replied Jordan. ‘It’s all right. In October they were booked to play at The Plymouth Top Rank. after making a quick phone call to The Banshees. Finding an old petrol station Jordan was once again on the phone to The Banshees – one of those old phones with twisty wires – ‘It’s all right we’re coming!’ When they ﬁnally arrived they were met by a bunch of bouncers in frills and velvet jackets. A few weeks later they were faced with more trouble in Brighton when they went down to play The regency. In all it took them eighteen hours to get there. Then the bouncers set up the drumkit in the wrong place. Anyway they were allowed in. Jordan smoke rising from her ears. knocked him off his stool. equally heavy. ﬂexing a muscular arm ‘We’re the band.e. we’re coming!’ the driver took them to the centre of Birmingham.

They had to do two sets. partitioned it off and covered it up with packing cases so no one knew it was there. the largest music club in London. and The Music Machine. a young kid called Don who had a marvellous fencing shirt with ADAM AND THE ANTS sprayed all over it would drum for the group a few years later on Martian Dance. Adam.demands. And the manager watched with fury as his lovely pound notes ﬂoated out the door in the hands of a ‘miserable bunch of punks’. The fans helped them load the van. Jordan and the band on the other hand were slightly overdressed. because all the wires were live the problem was that there was no earth. where they played alongside The Banshees and The Rockats.and the whole band in gloves. As Adam was singing.and he wanted it to be ‘spectacular’ so he asked Adam and the Ants to play. so just go and get your money back. Everyone let rip. and begged them to pose for photographs with the faithful. He had been to a party a while before where The Sex Pistols had played and the whole place had been wrecked by gate crashing fans of the band. where they had a series of headlining gigs. wait till the electricity had died down. One of them. Jarman was giving a friend a 21st Birthday Party .’ The audience moved en masse towards the box ofﬁce. that prestigious rock venue where The Who and the Cream made their early appearances. I know you’re all Ants fans. Jordan in her large black rubber skirt . When people got too hot dancing to the band they went and had baths in a bathroom without walls and so in the end everyone was dancing naked. They played a large number of gigs that year including The Marquee. And then there was of course Jarman’s famous party. For the ﬁrst time the group realised they had a strong group of followers. the electricity built up and built up until it became impossible for him to touch the microphone – in particular with his mouth.
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. then come back on stage again. Adam in a gold-rubber Tshirt from SEX which stuck to him and made sweat pour down his arms. With The Ants growing popularity Jarman wasn’t taking any chances: he put all his belongings in one room.

He is most deﬁnitely Persona non grata with those of us ‘in the know’ (you know us what get in gigs for nothing like) and putting them down is almost an article of faith amongst the pen pushing profession. So how come I found myself this brass monkies Tuesday actually quite ennnjer … ennjjjo … erh thinking they were pretty interesting.But it didn’t seem to bother anyone much. An article written by Gary Bushell in Sounds tells us about the press attitude toward the band: ‘I don’t quite know how to say this but I ennnnn. “Oh Adam and the Ants how passé. There we are I said it. Oh bollox. Repeat after me: everyone hates Adam and the Ants. At the Marquee. Huh. Adam. At Eric’s in Liverpool. I ENJOYED Adam and his hymenopterous insects! … He
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. he’s hit his head on the rafters and ended up in hospital for doing the same thing in Plymouth. and it had been a year of injuries for him. I enjoyed them. So Adam started to distrust the ofﬁcial rock press and look toward the fanzines for support. when you start working on a music paper they make you sign a piece of paper to the effect that you detest AA and everything he stands for. I’ve done it ever since I ﬁrst saw them. Adam’s athletic antics on stage had however got him into trouble. But the most hurtful injuries came from the music press. It’s the truth. For some reason Adam and the Ants were not liked. In fact I’ll tell you this. and you have to swear on a Bible never ever to even consider giving them a good review. I ennnnn … Sod it. I’ve done it meself willingly. although it’s none of your business at all. start again. It seemed obvious that they would get bigger and bigger there was so much originality and so much energy. I saw Adam and the Ants and quite enjoyed them. he’d thrown himself off the stage hoping the audience would catch him . dahling”. once you’ve said it once it’s not so bad. the party went on all night. Jordan and The Ants had covered a lot of ground since April that year.but was practically crushed by the crowd.

Not often rock n’ roll. Deutsche girls imagery. Oh you terrible termite Adam! And the music was suitably theatrical: great ponderous pulsing riffs and slowly surging slabs of sound ﬂirting with HM but far too cartoon decadent for that. Excuse me. face coated in thick white make-up. He takes himself seriously but he’s quite fun in a campy caricature of Bowie’s darkest moments sort of way.’
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. coming on a drama school. Just another of the Zig’s goblin offspring locked in a marvel comic nightmare dream no mortal mind can hold tossing in all the expected SM.reminded me of a hammier version of Siouxsie. shoulder-hugging cracked actor. several times boring and hardly ever pop but really a sub-Art form in itself and I must admit that even though I didn’t feel the urge to go and speak to the man (He might have whipped me for godsake) did stay right till the end. eyes staring. I’ve got to make an appointment with my doctor. body jerking and all that.

The two of them. alone in the dressing room. He stood in the audience and watched the set. They then began banging on the door and yelling. of course. They went back to the dressing room and shut the door. It Doesn’t Matter and Puerto Rican. Walters said that he really wanted the band to do a John Peel Session but with one stipulation: Jordan’s song had to be included. It wouldn’t budge. there was no way that it would open. Adam and the Ants recorded the session for John Peel. However the session that they did for him came about in a very funny way. Jordan came on after a few numbers to sing with Adam. Walters stopped her and asked for a chat.Ten – ‘A session for John’
On the 23rd of January. because the band was playing. John Peel’s programme has enormous inﬂuence. In walked
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. She knew that Adam would agree to this. Over the past few years he has continually been voted ‘No. Jordan was very embarrassed indeed. Lou. She thanked him for coming and then went to open the dressingroom door for him. and when she was leaving the stage. It was her ﬁrst encounter with anyone from the BBC and she wanted to make a good impression. Walters turned up at the Royal College of Art on 1st December.’ The band ﬁnished their set and the door opened. They had locked themselves in. It really was quite a landmark for the band. 1 Favourite Person’ in many of the music papers because of the way he enthusiastically champions new music. They put down four tracks: Deutscher Girls. to watch them play. They couldn’t be heard. Walters was very interested by the fact that The Ants had a female manager and so Jordan took the opportunity to invite him to see the band. Jordan was at a Banshees’ gig at the Croydon Greyhound when she met John Walters who produces The Peel Show. just stared at one another. and so she said ‘yes’ immediately. ‘And there we were locked in this bloody dressing room. 1977.

Vince Taylor and the Playboys happened to be one of Adam’s ‘hero’ bands and he was bowled over at being able to talk to someone who was in it. Besides the BBC another company approached the band. After Don had seen the band play at The Marquee he had a long talk with Adam. They were the ﬁrst people ever to put money into the band and the only ones not to get anything out of it. Don had been in a rock band in the early Sixties. The best thing they did for them was to buy them a van.
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. still acting as manager and doing all the same services that she had always done.the band to see John Walters and Jordan just sitting there. Megalovision gave the band spending money but Jordan had to get chits for everything and bring back the receipts. Howard Malin. carrying the contracts and arguing with club owners. They were the ﬁrst group to do this and for that reason held in high regard by the early punks. Don was with the company because there were a couple of ﬁlmscripts that he wanted to make but he and Adam became good friends. Jordan was taken on too. Vince used to dress in leather and the band would stage mock ﬁghts with blood capsules. he had joined Vince Taylor and the Playboys when he was sixteen. It looked like he hadn’t liked them at all from the expression on his face. enthusiastically jumping from one track to another to show how the style of the early Sixties music had evolved. Walters had obviously only seen the ﬁrst part of the set. Very few of the Megalovision people could muster up enough courage to risk the sweatiness of The Marquee where the band were doing their Thursday nights. The company was called ‘Megalovision’ and they were the ﬁnanciers behind Jubilee. Adam was mad about The Playboys because they were a kind of seminal punk band. The company was primarily concerned with making ﬁlms. The man in charge of The Ants. waiting. At his ﬂat in West London Don played Adam some rare records. really didn’t have a clue about the music. The one person who did go and really did show an interest in the gand was Don Hawkins. Looking after The Ants artistically and musically and collecting the money after gigs. Everyone thought all this was rather funny.

They were all dressed in black leather. It wasn’t how he imagined it at all.’ said Adam. The band was the Beatles. ‘Sieg Heil. Your band is just like I remember The Beatles when they began. It was far less gutsy than punk. But it was a show. Don told Adam how the Playboys had been booked to play at a club in Hamburg called the Starlight. The ﬁghts too. Sieg Heil’ and told them all to ‘Fuck Off’.’ ‘Who were The Beatles. They were full of aggression. That night Don watched them play from the wings. The songs go on quite normally and then suddenly burst into a bit of well rehearsed chaos. All this appealed to Adam. Years ago.his name was John Lennon. John Lennon began thrusting his arm up and down in time to the music. kicking things around. when they left a gig they were instructed never to smile but always to look mean. This applied to interview and appearances too. And yet The Playboys were banned for being too violent. When Don arrived he walked into the club and saw one of the other bands setting up. Several Liverpool bands were doing a residency there at the time. This story Don related to Adam and then he said: ‘When I saw The Ants playing The Marquee I thought I was back in Hamburg. we all carefully choreographed. and when he succeeded in making all of the Hamburg audience do the same he shouted.Adam was amazed when he ﬁrst heard something by Vince Taylor and the Playboys.’
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. One of them was sitting on a cabinet eating a roast chicken . ‘We’re The Ants. Adam discovered.

One evening he and Nancy Spungeon. By the time this got back to Sid. Sid Vicious and Siouxsie Sioux were frequent visitors. When Sid. Adam is much stronger than Sid ever was and had he been awake at the time perhaps their differences would have been resolved in a more affable manner. and satisﬁed at the obvious marks of his handiwork. That night Adam was sleeping in the kitchen at St. Sid burst into the kitchen. James’s. ‘He’s asleep.Eleven – Life in celebsville
Adam often stayed at Jordan’s ﬂat in St. They were discussing Adam’s main instrument the bass guitar and Adam was saying that if Sid liked he’d teach him how to play it. I’m afraid. Sid Vicious’ girlfriend. Vicious’ boot.’ he was told. and Adam. who was soundly asleep woke to the feel of Mr. ‘Where’s Adam?’ he asked. were talking at the ﬂat. Still asleep and offering no resistance Sid inﬂicted a number of punishing blows to his head. Sid took the ‘whole thing seriously’ but didn’t have Adam’s wider perception of what punk was all about. turned up at the ﬂat. for whose murder Sid was later accused. Adam’s offer had been changed. Adam however would generally sit quietly in the corner somewhere inside his leather jacket drinking pot after pot of tea while Rotten surrounded himself with cans of lager. Nancy told Sid that Adam had been putting it about that Sid couldn’t play the bass. never being one to quash his feelings. It seems a shame that the two people who took the punk style more seriously than anyone else could only discuss their musical endeavours at such a basic level. in the kitchen. James’s. left. so on many an occasion the living room contained three of perhaps the most inﬂuential singers of the punk era. just off Piccadilly. Johnny Rotten.
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.

Adam is not a keen party-goer. or Siouxsie. insisted that Adam attend the opening of Saturday Night Fever for publicity purposes. pretty. And ﬁnally to cap it all a ﬂower power lady suddenly leapt to her feet and started dancing in front of the screen singing ‘What we need to do is all dance and love each other!’ It was an extraordinary première that totally polarised the audience. a Megalovision executive took Jordan aside: ‘Make sure he’s seen. Some of them loved it. however. they were nevertheless hardbitten rivals. The ﬁlm had employed a bunch of motorcycle stunt girls who stood in for Toyah. pretty wild.’ Instantly Adam and Jordan found themselves members of ‘Celebsville’ as they called it and invitations to all the ﬁlm industry functions.Jubilee was ﬁnally released and Adam attended the première with his parents. Before the limousine arrived to pick up the two Jubilee stars. Although the bands were pretty matey with each other. until this happened. Adam’s father said that he found the whole thing ‘Pretty wild. This went on throughout the ﬁlm and made an astonishing noise. one faction would cheer and the other one would boo. Adam and Jordan. loudly proclaiming that they thought the ﬁlm was ‘disgusting’ and ‘We’re Christians’. They were both invited to the opening night of Robert Stigwood’s ‘outrageous’ ﬁlm Saturday Night Fever which brought John Travolta to Britain in a big way.’ they said. so whenever anyone came on the screen. In fact he rarely goes at all and since he doesn’t drink or smoke the sight of a room full of inebriated executives is not something which he can take for very long. Megalovision. like Adam or Toyah. others hated it. And then a friend of the camera crew keeled over with an awful crash and had to be carried into the foyer. Jarman had had no idea that the ﬁlm was violent. Halfway through the showing of the ﬁlm they got up and left. They were tough young ladies and had terriﬁed Jarman by driving their motorcycles at him and stopping within inches of his feet while he was ﬁlming. All the bands came with their followers so that the cinema was full of factions. ‘Hold his arm all the time
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. opening nights and parties poured in.

and Jordan told Andy that the decision was ﬁne. Adam refused to go.’ she said and put down the phone. Then within a few hours she got a call from Andy Warren saying he wanted to see her. and Jordan went downstairs to see Andy standing there. of Southern Comforts. ‘He’s dire to go to a party with.
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. As soon as she got back she phoned the band. There was a great deal of publicity surrounding Jubilee and Cannes was bound to be a number one bun ﬁght. So Jordan and Derek went alone.’ It all drove Adam mad. so Jordan said. Then he got stuck for words.’ The doorbell rang.’ said Jordan. and they just stood there staring at each other on the doorstep. ‘Because he just wants to leave after two minutes. ‘Let’s have a drink’. Jordan was away for ten days. or hardly ever. come over. ‘Oh ﬁne. The last gig Jordan did with the band was playing alongside XRay Spex at the Roundhouse. Unless he gets into chat with somebody who’s in a band or something.because they will be taking pictures of you. he hated the parties and he hated the photographs. ‘Looking bloody shaky and I thought. Then looking at her two ﬂatmates she said.’ But Adam put up with it all and attended a requisite number of ‘dos’ to keep Megalovision happy. ‘I’d already made-up my mind that I’ve got to do something with myself’. He doesn’t dance. Oh God …’ Andy braced himself and said very quickly that he thought it would be better if she wasn’t with The Ants. Push him in front of all the cameras. Next on the list of important social engagements was the opening of Jubilee at the Cannes Film Festival. So they had a coupe. ‘The next ten minutes will decide whether I am to remain with The Ants or not.

Adam and the Ants and Siouxsie and the Banshees were obviously too ‘serious’ for the companies. Adam was ﬁnancially depressed too. Worst of all the band had no record deal. It wouldn’t be an over-dramatisation to say that he was very poor. the whole business was very disturbing. Personally.Twelve – Just treading water
All the success of the later months of 1977 seemed to be slipping away. They were likely to make demands.or whatever you want to call it . no company was forthcoming with a deal for them. Even though they had two tracks on Polydor’s Jubilee compilation. The record companies were all dishing out two single deals. He was living in a small ﬂat in Earls Court which was the size of a bathroom. but somehow the record companies didn’t really believe that it meant anything. for which it had once been used. Neither did they believe that ‘Antmusic’ . still refusing to sign on. They would want control over what songs were released. signing up dozens of bands that they didn’t think would last long enough to record an album.that they hadn’t been ‘signed’. it almost seemed a deliberate plot by the record companies to overlook them.was here to stay. At one point they had certainly overtaken Siouxsie and the Banshees and The Slits. for Adam. They preferred to sign easier one-hit-wonder bands. They may get into the Board Room and spoil the leather chairs … these were the types of prejudices exercised on bands like The Ants. People sprayed ‘Sign the Banshees’ on the walls of EMI and Polydor. It had already become a joke with The Banshees . There was criticism that they weren’t changing enough. It made the band despondent. The Ants had a huge cult following. He was renting it from David Gibb who was now sculpting in
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. Everyone around the band knew that their ﬁrst chance had slipped from them.

He would turn up and work like a madman. Howard Malin and everyone around him were in no doubt that he would be famous and a star. the market was ﬂooded. They refused it. Adam would have given it away. When he had ﬁnished a friend’s bathroom he painted on the wall: By Adam Ant. are created by what the record companies call ‘a gap in the market’. Vivienne and Malcolm’s new shop. as soon as it slows a little you feel as if you’re dying. He understood the images and knew what was required. that if only Adam and the Ants could have got on television at this time then they would have ‘made it’. They ﬁll a vacant lot in our imaginations. One night he was eating round at the ﬂat in St. which were being admired from someone in the ﬂat. however. After Adam had gone they had noticed that he’d left the boots behind as a gift. like Adam. James’s.
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. One day he will be famous. Adam started earning some extra money by doing some painting and decorating for friends. It was hard for the band to push on in the face of such adverse publicity from the press while being ignored by everyone else. In 1978 there was a glut of new music. The experience of success is like ever increasing adrenalin. Someone else admired his black leather jacket and he offered it to them then and there. Why then was it slipping away? Most nearly big pop stars.Berlin. He had a pair of boots on from SEDITIONARIES. sexy. but for some weird reason they were overlooked. It has been said. Not just to be a musician or make a few singles. Poor and discouraged but still driven by one goal. What was wrong with the market? He was witty. he wanted to see the whole machinery of the pop music mythology get into gear for him. a good performer and a good songwriter. His manager. I don’t think it would be going too far to say that he wanted to be a Rock Star. There was no place for stars because there was too much going on that was new and interesting. A week later it was stolen at the Marquee. It was the punk movement that was the star rather than the individuals. talking and painting the whole time.

at the Chelsea College of Art. the various coals that were still warm gathered together in little clots to re-group. however. From 1978 onwards. He appreciated the fans and believed that this was the way to ‘really do it’. Adam had been caught up with what is known as Nazi chic.’ She was thinking on a bigger scale but Adam was still thinking on a more underground level. which later became the Anti-Nazi League. They weren’t interested. a guitarist with the band called The Cameras. The Roundhouse gig was the last one where the ‘faithful’ Johnny Bivouac played with the band. and by the band’s next gig at the Hard Rock Café in London.because he disliked the Rock Press so much. A lot of boats missed but no intention of staying on the beach. keep to the major press. By 1978. the ﬁrst of which was the movement known as Rock Against Racism. the chief manifestations of the Punk movement have been in various cause célèbres. As it is. The next gig they did was a rock against racism event at Ealing College. Jordan in her time of management had badgered the major companies. ﬁlms take a time to make and it was never intended as a retrospective documentary like Don Lett’s ﬁlm Punk in London in any case.’ She was ﬁghting for a big company but Adam would say: ‘No. ‘No. ‘You’re treading water. Still. A
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. they wouldn’t do anything. we’ll wait for an independent label. but neither was Adam either.’ He was very keen to do interviews for fanzines – the homemade Xerox copied efforts the fans were producing . by building up a cult. Jordan contested this. Matthew was in the band. And their next gig. was done without a guitarist at all. Adam had met Matthew Ashman. They’re arseholes but they’ll probably come through in the end.If only Jubilee had come out earlier then it would have caught the crest of the ‘New Wave’ and could have established the band. an unfortunate label harping back to the days of the Berlin nightclubs and the cabaret acts that dominated the Berlin scene at that time. She took the tapes to EMI and sat there while they listened. Jordan maintained that the band couldn’t do anything unless they’d got a big company behind them. the initial ﬁre of the Punk movement had well gone out.

Adam was at the time wearing a shirt which had got little symbols printed on it from the badge ‘Whip in My Valise’. but within a few hours they were sitting over a pot of tea. After another RAR gig in the South Bank Polytechnic. People had become terribly serious about Punk. talking about make-up. The Rock Against Racism gigs. all inspired by Allen Jones. it was primarily a shock tactic.prime example. and the rock press. of course. A lot of bands.
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. so she went along to the gig. The young politicians had moved in. and by ‘camp’ I mean a certain theatricality that accentuates vulnerable sexuality. however. but she thought it was about time she re-made her links with them. Adam’s act and stage manner has always been a triﬂe camp. They have nothing to do with the type of Facism at the moment being propagated in our country by the British movement and the type of violence which has taken to the streets with bricks and petrol bombs in its hands. in Adam’s case is the track they recorded for John Peel and on the Derek Jarman Jubilee compilation. at this time had to pay for their earlier use of such Germanic imagery since it had gone out of fashion. Deutsche Girls and the original song ‘Dirk Wears White Sox’. had now become terribly analytical. were important in getting together a great number of people for one cause. The use and the power of Nazi imagery was two-fold. The Ants again played The Marquee. Siouxsie had to go to quite some lengths to explain exactly why she had the penchant for offering Nazi salutes during her performances. after its initial condemnation of Punk. The rise of the RAR gigs was in part due to the new interest which everybody was showing in reggae music. The suggestions of violence and the suggestions of pressures which have been contained in Adam’s early lyrics should. like Siouxsie and the Banshees and Adam and the Ants. never be taken literally. but it also evoked a certain air of decadence and alienation. mainly bands like Black Slate and. Jordan hadn’t been to see the band for some time. It was a little difﬁcult talking again after such a dramatic break. in much the same way that Mel Brooks used it in his ﬁlm The Producers.

The Decca record company had been for some time in decline. and right in the midst of it is an enormous crescent-shaped place that looks abandoned. Mike Smith and Frank Hodges. it was run by two men both in their eighties called Bill Townsley and Sir Edward Lewis. It is not an inspiring recommendation for their label. They approached The Ants manager at Megalovision. rather. There were only ﬁve people in the company who liked the band. everyone else thought it a waste of time to have signed them. moreover that they were the absolute best of the new crop of bands. One of their ﬁrst ports of call was The Marquee where the ‘Ants’ were doing their Thursday night residency. In large letters on the side it says DECCA. Adam was very dubious.Thirteen – The deal
If you take a Southern Region train to Victoria you will pass over one of the largest railway stations in the world. But in 1978 they started up a department under the leadership of two men. and can always be seen at forty-ﬁve degree angles to the bar being abetted by the music press. Adam decided that they should sign but because he didn’t trust them he had a clause built into the contract which meant all the demo time would be his and he would own the tapes. It’s a maze of old tracks and dead railway buildings. they didn’t even have an A & R department: that worthy body of company men that actually go out and see new bands. they are made to spend a long time in the studio recording all their material as demo tapes for the company. it expresses in brick and steel the image that most people had of the company in 1978. They were immediately impressed. Decca was a unknown quantity. Clapham Junction. and offered him the standard contract of two singles and an album. They thought The Ants were a more appealing version of The Banshees and. (Bands do not just go into a company and record one single at a time. So
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. Howard Malin.

The choice of their ﬁrst single is a crucial decision for a band. the simple fact is this: Adam intended it to be a double A side with Lady. This he came to regret. which was the most important thing at that stage for him. It was hated by the press and many of the fans and associates of the band alike. People were making their minds up about The Ants too much and too regularly. Adam was concerned that people thought of them as a ‘four-four kind of crash.’ It was a bizarre night which only increased the gulf between the young and the old. seeing their band ‘Make It’. He thought ‘Parisians’ was the last thing people expected. since the concerts were electric and the audiences enthusiastic. ‘But they did the dirty on me and they made Parisians the A side. This was obviously
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. They had a strong following at this time and Adam was often up all night replying personally to every fan letter he received. get very excited about the ﬁrst pressing. just a few yards up the track from the cataleptic Decca building: ‘Three thousand punks crushed to death in a rush of wheelchairs leaving. This was bound to do the trick. He found it ridiculous that every cheque and pound note had to be passed by an old man upstairs. The release of Young Parisians caused quite a lot of fuss. The friends of a band. so it becomes a kind of fulﬁlment of a promise. Together. because as soon as you are on record it can be one step further away from your fans. He found it an archaic company in which not much happened. Much has been said about the release of Young Parisians . naturally. The last band that they’d really worked with was in the sixties. because ‘Parisians’ was obviously a joke. bang.Howard Malin had the idea of organizing a trip for all the Decca executives to see the band play live. the fact that he didn’t put out his strongest product at the time. A great many of Adam’s lyrics have to do with watching or looking. ‘Parisians’ and Lady could be called Songs for Voyeurs. wallop band’.’ Adam found the whole experience of Decca a bit strange. They wouldn’t ‘get in behind the band’. Adam decided upon the single that they would record. or one image being copied by another. as in Xerox. That’s partly the reason why he gave them ‘Parisians’ because he didn’t really trust them with any of his other work. The executives were brought to see them during a gig underneath the arches in Battersea.

The lyrics of someone molested in the photocopying room by a very ordinary. in a corridor somewhere. Voyeurism is the theme of decadence. or one image upon another. The whole plot is tantalisingly perverse. It’s the type of song which is likely to be raped in the foyer of a respectable banking company. The reviewers of the music press. of Berlin. the fascination with isolated images. Sounds printed a review which ran: ‘Laugh? I nearly split my bondage trousers. Good old Adam. he’s at last dumped all that punk outrage and gone onto punk singalongs extolling the virtues of Paris.part of the legacy of having been a designer. in a very surreal way. perhaps in a dream. of dark clubs and atmospheres.’
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. The theme of Lady is that Adam is being sexually assaulted through his eyes by an unmoving naked lady whom he has discovered by chance. ‘Parisians’ is a fairly subversive song that is posing as a ballad. straight-laced secretary. It’s a vision of life that is always expectant of sudden sexual encounter. In Lady Adam is the one doing the watching. Maybe it’s his way of conning a French promoter into bringing his band over. however were not really prepared to listen at all.

He had followed them to just about every gig. anything for a bed.Fourteen – Young Belgians
Adam had never been abroad in his life and the ﬁrst place he went to was Belgium. About six of the hardcore fans went with them and turned the whole thing into a riotous weekend. Belgium is one of those countries that you forget about and only remember once a year when it crops up on the scoreboard of the Eurovision Song Contest and they vote like they’re giving away balloons. The second gig was more successful than the ﬁrst. It was very much a matter of them having to make their own entertainment. they
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. The stage itself was rotten. one of the strongest supporters the band has ever had. this strange looking bunch of dedicated fans. trying to get himself nicked so he could spend a night in the cells. Belgium hadn’t seen anything like them. One night sleeping on a steaming compost heap to keep warm. the curtains were like shrouds and golden grapes had fallen like rain from the friezework . where the gilded cherubs had lost half their arms in the ﬁght with the years. The atmosphere was one of the ghosts of decadent old gentry romping with their whores up in the boxes.it looked as if the place had seen too many operas. They played in an old theatre in Ninove. The band went off in a VW van to play a gig in Leopoldsburg. By the end of the gig the audience were really moving. It was like something from a Fellini ﬁlm: a decaying Grand Duchess of a theatre. Peter Vague went along. so the French and Dutch crack Belgian jokes . sleeping out in the snow.the very same jokes in fact. Just as we crack Irish jokes in England. eaten up with woodworm and damp. Their electricians didn’t seem to understand electrics at all and so the band were constantly electrocuted by everything they stood on and anything they touched. Adam dedicated just about every song in the set that night to people from London.

They had a German driver and everyone in the band was concerned about the familiar English cliché ‘Don’t mention the war’. Adam looked out of the windows. which had begun to cloy. They drove past a huge tank. unconsciously. They were playing at the S036 club on the Iranianstrasse in the Turkish quarter. it was marvellous. High points for both of them. the crew still inside. and it included a short chapter about what was happening in
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. The ﬁrst interview that Adam ever gave was for an Italian book on Pop music. a friend of Jordan. As they went through customs the guards eyed their strange aggressive clothes. Their audience was very serious. Berlin. living in a city cut off from the rest of their country. ‘They’re very posey in Berlin.’ Despite the distance of the audience.’ Berliners are very insular. It was being written by Anna Maluxa. every sign he saw had been shot through with bullet holes by the bored East Berlin guards. Adam began. After another gig in England they went to Germany. very seriously minded. Bowie and Iggy were living in Berlin at that time. to whistle Springtime for Hitler and Germany from the ﬁlm The Producers which he liked and the band joined in singing the chorus. Adam watched from the stage. Iggy’s ‘Idiot’ album was out along with Bowie’s ‘Low’. built right into the Berlin Wall. Everyone had a great evening . which illustrates that these concerts abroad did not constitute anything so Grand as a ‘European Tour’ but more a set of one night stands in far ﬂung venues. ‘They don’t want to be thought of as Germans. Bonn and Langensfeld. and they came down and viewed us. It was about the time when ‘Euro Rock’ ruled.began to tear down the giltwork and the curtains until the wattle and daub of the walls themselves came away. Adam ‘got a buzz off Berlin’. they stood at a distance from their positions in the dark and observed what the young English could do. sitting with it’s gun aimed at the Wall. It was very different to the state of music in London. playing in Cologne.and totally destroyed the theatre. They drove in their van through the Eastern block to Berlin. they’re Berliners. Their next gig was in Margate. they’re out on their own in the middle of No Man’s Land.

still not knowing to this day which or what type of programme they were on. They made their ﬁrst TV appearance in Milan too. The Ants played the Modenostra Fashion Show. The style-conscious Italians recognised the same in the band. The band had been. and being warmer than the Berliners were able to show it. There were problems with the tickets too. up until then. Adam was determined that they should get away from London. For these reasons Italy had become notoriously bad for rock bands.
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. Adam himself became somewhat of a hero to the punks in Italy. There were only about twenty punks there. and strangely. The Ants invaded Italy. so. There were many political problems about staging a gig there since you have to get the ‘yes’ from each and every political party. and play all the major towns and all the small clubs in England.London. The result of this was that Anna was able to do a great deal of publicity for them in Italy. but the whole audience were able to join in unlike in England where punk bands played almost exclusively for punk audiences. after Germany. Adam decided to ‘really get to work’. Jordan came over for the holiday and although she was no longer with the band found herself humping speakers. Otherwise one or the other will mount a picket. they felt most at home. They found the whole business nonsensical. It was by far the happiest of their European dates. Dave Barbe played the drums with two rolled up newspapers and had a cappuccino on one of the drums which he drunk in between mad bursts of miming to the backing track. the rest about The Ants. Of all the Young Europeans they’d played to. in Italy. The Young Parisians Tour was organised . playing Young Parisians. very much a London band. it was the Young Italians that most took to Young Parisians.when Lou Reed played there he got bricks thrown at him. Half the interview was spent talking about The Sex Pistols. the band has to purchase their own tickets and then resell them to the audience. When they came back from Europe. Most bands wouldn’t touch Milan .

and so the ﬁre became one of his favourite topics of conversation. He had a grand piece of wood on the ﬂoor of his room which served as a low table. The place had the air of an ancient Japanese monastery. absolutely spotless. he put a big circle around a line which said: ‘Be wary of Scorpios. This was the time when he was wearing his kabuki make-up and kilt. Precision was the order of the day. giving the impression of a photograph. the sort of place where if you moved you would be hit over the head with a lump of wood. On this he displayed his small collection of oriental gadgets. Just above the ﬁre Adam placed his starchart. Scorpios need a lot of sex. The whole room was lit from the ﬂoor like a stage. so
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. In the corner was a sink. stark and black and white.’ All his friends found it funny because since the room was so cold you were naturally inclined to look towards the ﬁre. and the lighting of the shows was very clean. Adam circles all the bits which he felt applied to him. a pair of folding scissors and a Japanese shaving kit. The clarity of things oriental. The room was freezing. One day he bought an electric ﬁre. It came to be known by his friends as ‘the black hole’ since he painted the whole room black. This caused great excitement. His bed was simply pieces of wood over which he had an old undermattress. and. and every angle he would adopt on stage.Fifteen – The Battenburg cake
Adam felt it was time for him to move home again. for Adam it was like getting a colour TV. He got a room in a house in Earls Court. in Redcliffe Gardens. Dennis the goldﬁsh had left him and gone to live at Megalovision. He would spend long hours in front of the mirror working out every move.

and he was remarking on how all the kids in York were two years behind the times. clash. I was standing next to a music critic. It was a part time punk venue for part time punks. They wanted to see the ‘four-four. They felt they were a no-hope band that were just trading on dead images. Once someone has become a whipping post and the brunt of running jokes. Inside. practically all of what was to become the ‘Dirk’ album was put down on demo tapes. of course. the rest of the time it was run by the Rugby Club as an old time dancing venue. It was a very productive time. up from London.’ This shows just the sort of attitude that the rock press still had towards Adam and the Ants at the end of 1978. ﬁlling places like the Cavernons Music Machine. By the end of 1978 there had grown up a whole new generation of ‘punks’ that weren’t really punks at all. it’s not easy to change your opinions in print. bang.were continually confronted by this statement about Adam. it was raining hard and the bedraggled punks were steaming in their plastic trousers. The queues to see them stretched right the way around the wall. The band were playing on a stage hopelessly too small for their act. and in the heat of the dancing it was a whole different story. still dressed in bondage and sporting dog collars. Whether this got to the pages of his veritable organ or not is another matter. in a club which was very much further down the market than they
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. wallop’ bands which Adam and the Ants were not. The gigs were getting bigger and bigger. Therefore there was a lot of prejudice against the band. Although they were playing many small clubs the band had actually moved into being a much larger venue band. then. The Pop Club operated for only one night a week. and with it had missed the point. The Ants gig was. ‘But perhaps they’ve come to see the right band for all that. They had missed the original energy of the early bands. one of the rare chances for the ‘punk’ populace of York to get to see a London band. He was recording an enormous amount for them. out of the rain. A gig I remember particularly well was the one played at the York Pop Club in December 1978. and the journalist had to admit that it was indeed a very ﬁne band playing good songs. but the relationship with Decca was beginning to fall apart.

it must have taken everything he had just to buy the cake. of gloss paint. He lay on his bed and looked up at the ceiling and said: ‘I’ve done everything. The story of 1978 is one of Adam and the Ants playing awful clubs in terrible towns. The night that Stephanie visited he was very ill. all these things were still just the side roads and back alleys and nothing to do with the main business of establishing the band in the rat race of rock. the mention of sex or the mention of a gig. On the table was a Battenburg cake.’ He had food poisoning and really thought he was dying. I’m sick of all these
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. So Adam was forced to eat Battenburg cake alone for the rest of the week. they would invariably ﬁnd him laying on his bed. The whole room smelt of illness. The room was half white. Stephanie knew there was no way she could eat it. Adam often felt as if the whole audience had come to interview them.’ she said. One day he called Stephanie and asked her to come over for tea. the crazy TV shows. would visit Adam in his ‘black hole’ in Earls Court. When are these people going to be ready for my music?’ He felt a little bitter that Jubilee had got him such a bad name. standing there blankly waiting for pat answers. the deal with Decca. that should make this happen but it’s just not happening. Whenever friends. ‘You’ve started painting this bloody room again. knowing how little money he had. He looked up and said ‘I’m sick of all these people telling me that I’m a star. He felt he was regarded by many as just ‘a Figment of some ﬁlm director’s imagination. He wanted to get back and be respected on the basic level that he’d always set out to be.deserved. getting a bad and ignorant reception from everybody except their dedicated fans and those people who were bright enough to hear good music when it was being played to them. sick. of decay. Only two things would make him perk up. Adam offered her some. Before she arrived he went out and bought a Battenburg cake for a treat. He was continually weak and getting depressed. Weakness makes you very depressed but any depression that he suffered was outweighed by his frustration. Steph. The jaunts abroad. She walked in and saw he was lying ill. Adam came to refer to these clubs as ‘the toilets’. like Stephanie.

he had visited the Banhans the Art school which had pioneered modern graphic design in the thirties. the guys upstairs aren’t going to market you properly. They hoped that one day they might be able to re-sign him. Julie Stone.’ Howard Malin. He had come back from Berlin with lots of new graphic ideas. Howard was in L. It was the end of their relationship with Megalovision as well. I’m going to write more songs. we don’t want to hold you back. We all knew that he was absolutely stunning and superb. Then the Decca deal collapsed. We felt the only way you can “break” an artist like that is to go forward. and Julie Stone left the company to manage the band. It was after Berlin that they reversed the ‘D’ and changed the ‘S’ in the Ants logo.’ So they tore up the contract. They designed some superb posters for the tour but the company would not produce them.A. spend money. the majority the company thought he was a total waste of time. In the A & R department everyone was upset. Mike Smith. I’m sick of being told that everything’ll be all right in the end.people telling me that the Ants are “marvellous darling”. was bought out by Polygram and everyone in A & R except Tracey Bennet. I’m sick of being told that Decca will do a good job on the single. they were at their lowest time of all. ‘Upstairs’ they got angry and sacked the Ants artist.
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. merchandise him. ‘Fuck it. Shortly after the whole company collapsed. ‘We all knew that Adam was going to make it. the band’s manager was often away in America. and they told him ‘look. lost their jobs. There were big arguments between the A & R and the marketing departments at Decca.’ They asked Adam to come into the ofﬁce. so off you go. an Australian who had worked as a cleaner for Megalovision had effectively taken over as manager. contract void.’ And then. There was no unpleasantness. the A&R man had to pay for the printing of the Parisians cover himself and Adam designed it. It was nothing to do with the band at all. The marketing department refused to put any money into the band. I’m sick of being told I’m a ﬁlm star. I’ve got the songs.

Sixteen – ‘A happy new year’
Adam never considered giving up. He thought of going back over some of his old stuff thinking that perhaps people might be ready for that. He was working all the time, not only writing songs and gigging, but producing ﬁlm scripts, hundreds of drawings, clothes designs, and writing a book. Every scrap of paper became precious, envelopes, tickets, all these could be used for drawings and collages. The book he was writing was being written over another book, between the lines in the type, and to make it even more absurd, it was written in code. And he doesn’t intend it to be published until he’s dead. He began working at a house in Notting Hill, just on the corner of Camden Hill and Holland Park Avenue, painting one of the rooms. As was often the way with these jobs it enabled him to move in. It was a few days before the end of the year. Adam had been out drinking and come home a bit worse for wear. Stephanie was there and she accused him of being ‘a drunken slob you creep!’ Drinking was not something which he did to excess often, but on this occasion he’d drunk a bottle of vodka with Kenny Banshee and was totally slugged. Stephanie was so disgusted that Adam declared, ‘I’ll never drink again’. At ﬁrst she thought this was a bit of a melodramatic gesture, but it was something he stuck to. A couple of days later it was New Year’s Eve. He and Stephanie wanted to celebrate. Everywhere they went it was just drunken parties which Adam had vowed never to take part in. They got in Stephanie’s car and began to drive. They had no money for a meal. They passed people singing in the street, brandishing bottles. People were dancing in the fountains, music blaring out of doorways - the cheapest, worst music that the British people tend to play on these occasions. It began to rain, the car was stuck in a trafﬁc jam, the sound of bagpipes was everywhere. They were very low. What
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could they do? They turned to each other in the car and kissed. ‘A real big smackaru!. Suddenly all the horns began blasting behind them, the trafﬁc in front had begun to move and they were holding everybody up. They didn’t care, they ﬁnished their kiss. 1979 was going to be better. One day Adam was on one of his rare excursions to a party and someone who worked for Do It records came up and asked him if he would like to sign to their company. Adam was, as usual, very cautious, he’d just had an offer from a music publishing company. They had offered him ﬁve thousand pounds for all his songs over ten years. If Adam had signed that he would have lost the greater part of his present income. He decided to go and see the head of Do It, Max Tregonin. They were a very small company, the only other bands they really had were Rooglator and some small pub bands. Adam felt, that this meant that he would have a greater measure of control over what they put out. He made his feelings clear to Max, saying he wanted full control, that he didn’t want any advance (the money given against future sales) but simply wages for the band. Max Tregonin was very sympathetic towards Adam’s work, and felt that Adam’s demands were sensible, so the band signed with Do It for one album and two singles in the U.K. With his wages Adam went into Woolworths and bought his ﬁrst stereo. The working relationship with Do It was to be very constructive. They put the Ants into the Roundhouse Studios with Motorhead’s engineer. Max liked the quality of the demo tapes that Adam bought him and asked who produced them, ‘I did’ was the reply, so Max let Adam produce his own records. ‘He put virtually no restrictions on me at all.’ The Company were prepared to put money behind the design so that, when it came to it, Adam was able to employ two artist friends of his Wad and Clare to do the cover. They took out full page ads in Sounds which, in the public’s mind, bought the band from the club level to the Singles and Album level. They did another John Peel Session too, recording Ligotage, Animals and Men and Never Trust a Man with Egg on His Face. They played the Lyceum and sold it out. The Lyceum is one of the largest venues in London, situated just off the Strand, it looks like
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the Palladium. It was a real landmark for the band to ﬁll it with three thousand people, and then to play The Electric Ballroom and do the same again. It was a little like the situation on The Ants Invasion Tour, thousands of people ﬂocking to the gigs yet at the same time the band was not popularly successful, still no TV coverage or decent reviews. The day after their sell out at the Lyceum the band were off to Germany again. This time they went by train on the Trans-Europe Express, joking all the way about spies and murders. They had got into a First Class carriage by mistake, and Adam was just climbing up the wall to get into the top bunk when the train stopped and Dave and Andy pulled the curtains open to see where they were. They were somewhere in the Eastern Block and the train had stopped at a station. Dave and Andy started to giggle because on the platform people had gathered around laughing at Adam, halfway up the wall in his underpants. By the time Adam realised, the laughter had stopped, a guard was standing there with a machine-gun aimed at his backside. ‘This is it,’ thought Adam, ‘I’m never going to be seen again, I’m going to be shot in the bum!. All the others felt sure they were going to be taken off the train. Then suddenly the guard burst out laughing, and they moved off toward Berlin. Adam wore his new kilt that Wad and Clare had made for him. He began wearing the kilts during the Parisians Tour. He had been talking to Jordan one day and had been saying how he wanted something a bit more colourful. Something to break up the black leather trousers and the kilt seemed the obvious solution. It appealed to him because there’s something tribal and clannish about a kilt. He was also fascinated by the Samurai, at this time, who wore silk shirts over their trousers. Up to ‘the kilt’ his ‘look’ had been primarily leather trousers, Japanese shoes and shirts from SEX, black leather jacket, kabuki face and holding a red rose. Then, one night at The Marquee his jacket was stolen. When the jacket got stolen he moved on to shirts. There was no way he could afford another leather jacket so he just bought a couple of leather ties. It was at this time that Wad and Clare produced their famous photos of him. The audience in Berlin at the S036 Club couldn’t believe it
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I worked very closely on every single element of that whole time. After the gig everyone went over to a restaurant called The Exile. Everything about the line up and the songs worked. but for the Berliners it was ‘right out of the window’ as Adam put it afterwards. In England people are used to kilts because of the football matches. On the ceiling there’s a huge painting of someone having a heart attack. Everyone agreed that the shows they did there were the peak of that band. more or less made the records myself. Musically it was becoming a very satisfying time.when Adam came on with a kilt. Adam and about twenty others walked in. ‘With Do It it really was just like. “Do It Yourself” records. he had become a bit of a lesser known cult ﬁgure amongst artists since he committed suicide by castrating himself. It was the type of eccentricity which gave Berlin a buzz for Adam.’
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. which is one of the haunts of the artists in Berlin. Schwartzgogler was a ‘body artist’ that Adam admired. Somebody saw this badge on him and paid for the whole meal. Adam had a Rudolf Schwartzgogler badge on that he had made. You were just going in there and learning the skill of making a record.

This was a decision Adam had taken way back in ‘77. and they decided then that they would never treat a support band like that. Dave Barbe’s wife. let’s stop all this beating about the bush. Mandy. No longer would they support anybody.’ He designed another hand out for the fans.Seventeen – ‘Xerox’
As soon as they were back from the gigs in Berlin. Leeds. Birmingham. The ceiling was very low
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. she invented the character of Brenda the Secretary and wrote to everyone under this guise. places like Circles. Middlesborough. He made a set of designs of what he was going to be wearing on stage. Manchester. He was wearing a new type of make-up. Port Talbot. Edinburgh. This wasn’t going to happen any more. They had established a ﬁrm following in the North and West which he wanted to keep. Newport. The tour began with the release of the single Zerox/Whip in my Valise on July 6th. The Xerox Tour was practically a carbon copy of the tour before. Plymouth. they were to get better treatment than The Ants had frequently received. Adam went into Do It and said: ‘Right. playing nearly all the places they had covered on Parisians. and if anyone supported them. Newport and London. and then dates in Retford. Seventeen dates in twenty-four days. Liverpool. which had grown to two thousand. York. however. were still the pits. The 1978 gigs had been very ‘bitty’. No More. Swansea. Some of the places they played. It was the most gruesome of make-up schemes which made him look as if he’d been mining in a greasepaint factory. They had supported Generation X at King’s College and had been kept waiting seven hours for a sound check. Swansea and Plymouth Woods. Adam decided they should go on tour again. The worst gig of Adam’s life was the one on this tour when they played Plymouth Woods. had taken charge of the fan club. Exeter. Jacksdale. printed off lyrics and information. which was like a multi-coloured camouﬂage all over his face. Bradford.

He turned round and looked at Andy Warren. Andy went completely white. Adam cupped his hands and they ﬁlled with blood. He just remembers the feeling of his ears moving upwards as they stitched the top of his head together. and I think we’re going to have to have a local anaesthetic’ and the nurse replied: ‘We haven’t got any.’ ‘Well. As soon as the gig was over they drove him off in the van to a little hospital in the middle of nowhere. this is going to hurt a bit’. When the doctor arrived he walked in to see a young man. covered in blood. no more awful venues. They were whispering. strictly ten to six to record the whole thing. it would not stop. In future everything was to be better organised. Adam thought the whole thing so bizarre that he didn’t really feel anything. all part of his shocking make-up. They had three weeks. Adam continued to sing but the blood started to ﬂow over his face.
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. I think this is a bit deep. Mr Ant. Everyone thought it was a stunt. During the second number Adam’s head cracked against a beam and his head split open with a very deep cut. After that.over the stage with great vicious-looking beams at angles. he had had enough of the ‘toilets’ . said the doctor. with make-up all over his face and wearing a blue kilt. He heard a nurse say. a bit nasty. The band went straight into the studio after the tour to record the debut album Dirk Wears White Sox. the lights were keeping the wound open. He sat on a chair in casualty waiting for a doctor. He looked at Adam and said: ‘Don’t tell me. ‘What’s your name?’ and Dave Barbe replying: ‘His name is Mr Ant’ As they laid him down he could hear them all laughing. the Martians have landed’.no more clubs. but as he lay looking up at the little Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck designs on the ceiling he heard the doctor say: ‘Nurse. thinking that he couldn’t hear. Adam was losing consciousness a little.

one that had the quality of soul and funk. all art movements which have points of reference within Adam’s lyrics and performance. It’s not strange that Adam should ﬁnd ‘Performance Art’ stimulating and inspiring. Adam wanted to produce a stylish album. ‘Performance Art’ is a particular discipline which has been going on in and around art schools on and off since the beginning of this century. to create an environment in which the audience and performers were more vulnerable to the images being presented than
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. Adam had been absorbing other inﬂuences. The reasons why the ‘Dirk’ album is like it is many and various. whom he got to know as Wad and Clare. Kings of the Wild Frontier is like a manifesto. There was another spate of this grey area of artistic endeavour breaking out in the midseventies and it served in some ways to re-open the channels of communication between some of the punk and some of the DaDa. Most of the songs were a product of a much more consciously intellectual inspiration than the present work. outside from the sphere of rock and ‘punk culture’. In the summer of 1977 he had returned to see the degree shows at Hornsey and amongst them a performance by Jaunito Antonio Wad Whani and Clare Johnson. The whole idea of the type of show that Wad and Clare put on was. Its big moments were the DaDaists. but ‘Dirk’ is an album which was really a resume of two years’ work. have been recording its second or third album if only the companies had got themselves together in time. in all rights. Songs like The Idea are very reﬁned and delicate and are part of the period in Adam’s life when he had a fancy for oriental gadgets and black rooms. The band should. the Futurists and the Surrealists.Eighteen – The Artists
The thing about ‘Dirk’ is that it sounds more like a band’s second album and ‘Kings’ more like the ﬁrst. in effect.

some of them were positioned on the set which was a pure white with a canvas backdrop. To the music of Bach and Penderechi a tall ﬁgure entered carrying a bundle in his arms which he placed in the cage.
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. Adam went with the rest of the audience into a darkened room. say. then. things that are on the fringes. he was practically on the verge of tears.they would be to. It was for him a welcome breath of fresh air from his involvements with punk and Jubilee. harlequins and pierrots. ‘You’ve got to get this show on the road’. and a friendship began between them. Wad and Clare came out front to clear up. he said to them. Wad and Clare talked to Adam about the show. things of the fringe of our culture like tribalism. Clare made her the taffeta dress. The bundle contained a young girl who was revealed through the white curtain as the cage was lit from the inside. She was a friend of Wad’s that he had met on leaving art school. A lot of the images used were drawn from clown-types. so that he was able to drop the shock tactics which were the keynote of the band in Jordan’s time and to get a more considered area of light and shadow. obviously beautiful and experienced. like fetishism. It was to Wad and Clare that Adam turned for the design concept of the Dirk Wears White Sox album. He said how deeply moved he had been by it. They saw a black bondaged ﬁgure sitting silently in the centre of the room. He was impressed by the clean professional purity of its presentation. At the end of the show. Adam has always been a person who responds to diverse types of knowledge. when the audience had left. which they found amusing. using less frantic energy and more drama. The cover. Adam frequently visiting them to discuss his visual ideas. In the centre of the stage was a white block and on top of that a rectangular cage curtained in white. they were all given candles to hold. They used a model who had not worked as such since the ﬁfties. shows this mysterious lady. a picture in a frame. ‘Performance’ is the art of atmospheres. and things slightly out of the mainstream of traditional art like Wad and Clare’s show. walking through the sleeve into the record. What was born out of these meetings was a much clearer sense of style and performance for Adam.

Adam was very pleased with the work they had done on the cover. When he got the artwork he phoned Jordan and asked her to come and see it, and he played her the tapes of the album. Jordan had once more become very important in Adam’s life, she was beginning to advise him again on the type of make-up he should wear and he was using her as a sounding board for his ideas. They had begun ‘going out’ with each other. Jordan was still working for Malcolm and Vivienne at the shop, there were a lot of new ideas ﬂying around, plans for a new shop and a new set of clothes completely different from SEX or SEDITIONARIES, something more romantic. Jordan frequently spoke to Malcolm about Adam, saying how she still had complete faith in him, that she was sure he would become a big success. She implied as heavily as she could that he would be a good person for Malcolm to work with. One afternoon Adam received a phone call from Vivienne Westwood inviting him to come over that evening to a wedding party for two friends of theirs, Jean-Pierre and China. Adam felt that something must be in the air. He went to the wedding, he couldn’t see Malcolm anywhere so he went over and sat down with Vivienne. As they were talking he saw Malcolm in characteristic fashion by the door, arriving late. Malcolm walked in and instantly thought that someone else was the groom, went up to the wrong person and said ‘Congratulations’. Then made straight for Adam and his ﬁrst words were: ‘Hallo Adam, how’s The Ants’, then he sat down and talked to him for two and a half hours on how video was going to take over the music business. Malcolm’s interest in video was a practical one, he had been in Paris prior to his meeting with Adam, working on a mammoth video project. He had decided after the demise of The Sex Pistols, to return to his original discipline of making porn movies. He wanted to make something for children. It was to be a musical, and he had decided to produce the songs ﬁrst, rather like they did with Jesus Christ Superstar, in order to raise money for the video. He was working on various sets of lyrics. About six months prior to this Malcolm had discovered a record which he found interesting, one of the many rarities which he is
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continually turning up in his passion for records. Malcolm is an expert in the byways of rock. He’s one of the most exciting characters in the recent popular culture and someone who Adam has admired constantly throughout his career. The particular record that he had turned up contained the ‘Burundi beat’. Malcolm played it. Speeded up at forty-ﬁve, with an overlay of frentic guitar, he thought would make it really something. During the six months between this and meeting Adam at the wedding this musical image had become united in his mind with certain visual concepts: the Pirate, the Indian, the romantic warrior. These ﬁgures are the fathers of popular culture, they go beyond just being historical ﬁgures, having an attraction which is universal and irresistible. He thought he’d use a highwayman-type character called Louis Quatorez in the ﬁlm. He’d be young kid who dresses up at night and goes out raping young girls at gunpoint. But it’s here that Malcolm’s original ideas and Adam’s songs part company. There are similarities but they are fundamentally different. Malcolm was talking to Adam more about piracy as it was associated with the pirate radio stations than he was about Blackbeard. He was more interested in technology, video and marketing songs on cassette instead of vinyl. Adam knew that the ‘balls had dropped out of the band’ as he put it. They had been on the road for two and a half years, some of the band were getting bored, new ideas were vital. Adam openly admitted: ‘It had got to a point where it had been very self-indulgent for me, I think I’d been very selﬁsh in the way that any writer who knows what he wants is. I think that any single person, if he’s not a band-orientated person, does tend to be selﬁsh.’ In Adam’s mind ‘Malcolm was still the man’ and if he was interested then it was a compliment to him because he hadn’t touched anybody since The Sex Pistols. He’d come out pretty unscathed from The Rock ‘n’ Roll Swindle, left the sinking ship, and he was still the man. The two men said goodnight and left the wedding, both noticing they had the same boots on - from Malcolm’s shop SEDITIONARIES. The next day Jordan spoke to Malcolm in the shop. ‘Why don’t you manage The Ants?’ she said. Malcolm stood
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there quietly, and Jordan began to tell him everything she felt about the band, using some of the phrases she’d used the very ﬁrst time she’d seen them at The Man in the Moon. ‘He’s a real commodity, you could really do well with him …’ Malcolm just listened as Jordan went on and on. He gave the air of one who was being pestered. It has been said that Malcolm decided to work with Adam to get him off his back, to stop the continued pestering, but Malcolm is a wise man and knows about saleable commodities. The question in Malcolm’s mind was would Adam work on video? Malcolm never went to gigs so it was difﬁcult for him to get to see the band. He asked to see a video. Malcolm’s whole decision to manage the band depended on this. Adam got straight on to Stephanie and asked if she would make a video of Cartrouble and Tabletalk. She agreed. Then a couple of days later Andy Warren left the band. He had simply got bored with it and could see no point in going through yet another temporary managership. ‘Andy’s Andy, he just goes and does what he wants. I’ve never been able to make him out,’ said Adam. They auditioned as soon as they could and out of thirty or so people chose Lee Gorman, went straight into rehearsal and preparing the video. Stephanie went to her ex-college tutor and persuaded him that they should make the video in his garden which was ‘nice and private’, so one afternoon The Ants turned up there to record the two tracks. Stephanie took the camera and climbed up on to the roof of the house and shot the whole thing from there. Adam wore hardly ant make-up and just a shirt and trousers. Stephanie knew as soon as she got him in her zoom that it was going to be some of the best stuff of Adam on tape, Adam was curling up his lip like Cliff Richard. Stephanie described the video after as ‘Pure sex, Adam’, avowing that he’s most sexy without his stage make-up. ‘He’s more sexy, like on the video, in his natural state, he’s Superman on stage but he’s hunky Clark Kent in the ofﬁce offstage’. Stephanie felt sure that the video she had made would please McLaren and it would give him conﬁdence enough to work with the band. As soon as it was edited Malcolm came over to watch it. She put
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Curd didn’t even recognize him. He wasn’t in the least worried when the money came and found it rather endearing that Adam should be so worried about it. naturally. ‘Do you want me to manage you on your own. McLaren was ﬁnally impressed with the speed with which Adam was able to work and get things together. will the day after tomorrow be all right?’ The next day in the shop Malcolm told Jordan about the phone call. Adam was still in awe of him. Adam made more videos and showed him those as well. Adam said that it wasn’t. The only problem was that he didn’t have one. Stephanie was furious. all in all it would be a very clever little grand. and give it a complete overhaul. He said ‘yes’ but he couldn’t give it to him immediately. So. that they would have the money then. Malcolm had asked for the money to be given to him when The Ants did their Electric Ballroom gig. They went to talk about it. It may of course been part of McLaren’s tactics in trying to shake all the old out of Adam’s act. They couldn’t believe it. Malcolm sat for the entire duration of the video reading a newspaper. to speak to Malcolm. Andy had already left. he wanted to stick with his band. He was keen to take just Adam.’ said McLaren. explain who he was and just ask him outright for the money.the cassette into the machine and sat down to watch it with him and Adam. with fear and trepidation to see John Curd. thinking. the head of ‘Straight Music’ who were promoting The Ants’ big London concerts.
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. rushing past Jordan and Stephanie who were standing in the wings and ran to the telephone. or just the band?’ Adam wasn’t sure. Finally they agreed he would manage the band for a month or so. so he had to take his courage in his hands. When he walked into his ofﬁce. He insisted on a veil of secrecy and asked for a thousand pounds. This was what he wanted to see. He went. Adam came tearing off stage that night. ‘I couldn’t get the money. ‘Well if it’s on your own it’s ﬁfty ﬁfty. Adam considered it well worth the money. Malcolm was in need of the cash at this time because he was trying to ﬁnance Vivienne’s new collection of clothes and open a shop. and the band hadn’t really come together on the ‘Dirk’ album.

’ He went through the lyrics on the ‘Dirk’ album bit by bit. handouts. ‘He really beat the self-indulgence out of me. in the
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. The ﬁrst thing Malcolm did was to make Adam bring him all his lyrics.’ he said.’ Adam felt. Adam admired him for his ‘genius aspect’. He liked the song The Idea. ‘What do you want. There was a slogan ‘Ant Music for Sex People’ that occurred again and again in the literature.next album we have a big picture of you on the front. it’s good.these are some of the songs that Bow Wow Wow now play. ‘You’ve got to be more direct.’ He turned to him and asked. which is to try and get them all really buckled down to some hard work. badges.Work began in earnest. ‘Ant Music for Sex People’. What actually happened was that Malcolm slammed right in and in fact did what any good manager does. videos. as they say. the incredible amount of ideas that he was capable of having. ‘You’re making it very difﬁcult for yourself. Adam?’ ‘I want to be a household name. he had always been concerned to promote the idea of ‘Ant people’ but it had never really got through to the songs. he knew that he’d had shirts made with the words ‘Bow Wow Wow’ on them and that this was likely to be the name of a band. ‘Who’s this on the album cover? It’s not you .’ It was the kick Adam needed. Consequently he was very keen to get Adam to write a new type of song.’ Malcolm looked at him. posters. Therefore he had turned the scripts into songs . you don’t launch yourself on the world with it. Adam knew for a fact that McLaren had begun to think of a new type of band. because the company that was backing it thought it too radical. He was ‘very nice about the album’ but said it was the sort of thing one puts out as your eighth album. photos. and have everyone know and like Adam and the Ants. everything and spread them out on a table. Malcolm’s video was not going to be made now. ‘What’s that doing there?’ he asked ‘It shouldn’t be there it should be in a song. you’re doing it wrong.

It was their culture which excited him. dressed in her new clothes and standing. without a ﬁgurehead. They gave him a series of books published by Time Life. it was a clear symbol and when they appeared on the top of a hill ready to attack in the early dawn. It was a declaration of war. Some of the other books that McLaren gave him were things
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. ‘Underneath the white there is a red skin. He had made the connection with his fans. He wanted to concentrate on the rebellion of the Red Indian against the new technology of the white man. He knew full well that there was a whole army of disenchanted punks and young people who were without a goal. He wanted to extend this. get their feet moving. Adam read about the feathers. suffering for centuries’. the tribe. They were the only Indians to do this. bound in pretend leather and titled The Great Chiefs. Vivienne had a huge colour photograph made of twenty people. the white line made their faces glow. McLaren reﬂected upon punk and realised that it was a type of modern piracy in the music industry. on the brow of a hill at dawn. The Old West. The idea of the warrior captured his mind. stripes on. it would get them together. The books were full of scribbles and circles that Vivienne had put in. Malcolm gave him some of the books that he and Vivienne were working from to create their new clothes. But it was not the connection that McLaren wanted made. to create an image of the pirate that was anarchic and anti-establishment. A lot of The Great Chiefs tells the story of Geronimo. Both Adam and Vivienne were taken by the white line that everyone in Geronimo’s gang painted across their faces. the family.light of what Malcolm had said that on ‘Dirk’ he had ‘been growing up in public’). He began to write lyrics. and when they did. This was hung in the new shop when it opened. great warriors would collect eagle feathers to correspond with their victories. through trickery. Both Vivienne and Adam were caught by the story of how Geronimo evaded the Cavalry when he left the reservation. He had made the necessary connection for himself. Adam. Pirates. Identiﬁcation with this type of image would work. there were only twenty warriors and eighteen women and children. however was more interested in their creativity than their demise. It took three thousand cavalry six months to catch him and his gang.

This was of course something to which Adam immediately responded. Broadway Jungles . The songs that Malcolm gave him were these: Wipe-Out . Adam found the tape very diverse.The Surfaris. he had been thrown into a whirlpool of ideas and selfexamination.Johnny Burnet. and study the songs that Malcolm gave him. with Do It.The Hawks. and gave him a lot of information on how the American market works. Malcolm talked at great length of his experiences with The Sex Pistols and how that band was put together. as early as 1978 he had said in Sounds: ‘I love Perry Como and Shirley Bassey. After their conversation. I love Sinatra’.Oliver. often taking place after a meal.Charlie Parker. He went to see Max Tregorin and began to make plans to pull
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. YMCA .like Prick Up Your Ears.Buddy Holly and some belly dance music. Adam took notes. although McLaren didn’t mind working with them. but very useful. playing it again and again. however. he didn’t know what the phrase ‘Antmusic’ really meant.’ said Malcolm and gave him a tape of the songs that he thought were important. The humour had to be a lot more ‘up front’ and unabashed. The third main lesson was concerned with the construction of songs. the biography of the comic playwright Joe Orton. the humour of his songs had either been overlooked or suppressed by the nature of the music or it had been overlooked and misinterpreted as with Young Parisians. There must be humour. Got To Pick a Pocket or Two . There were problems. Adam wrote on the cover of the tape ‘Homework’ and on the ﬂap he wrote ‘To understand the construction of songs and interpreting them . I’m Back .Elvis Presley. ‘You’ve got to trust me.Ska 67. Sick Inside . Up until now. Cast Iron Eye . Burundi Black . Hot Dog . This was the other half of the ingredients.Christ Bennet.Village People. Where were you on our Wedding Night . No Problem . which was a very uncool thing to do at the time. Adam had always liked the classics like Sinatra and Perry Como. they were not too keen to do the same. Hello. Mystery Train and Blue Moon . Rave On .Gary Glitter.Antmusic’. He didn’t understand at that stage what he was writing.Peanuts Wilson.Lloyd Price.Burundi On 45. but it meant that he was ripe to listen. Tear It Up . He’s the Fat Man .Roger Miller.

When they released ‘Dirk’ it went like a storm. McLaren was making Adam concentrate on the lyrics while the rest of the band wrote the music. was that if Adam wanted to be a household name then he would need a bigger organization than Do It behind him.’ So. Adam went into the rehearsal room and said. but it just wasn’t happening.as it were. bang. Malcolm thought were awful and was continually demanding more of Adam. ‘Malcolm’s basically a realist. ‘Too many chiefs and not enough Indians’ . you’ve got to go and put your foot down. and they had to wait until they got the money back before they could press another seven thousand.them out of their deal with them. Boxes and boxes went in the ﬁrst week and it sold out. Malcolm went round to his house one day and said. Then Dave pushed his chair back with his hand and said: ‘I’ve been a good soldier for two years. If there’s a problem he’ll go straight to the root. Adam was very unhappy about the situation. he had been in the band a long time longer than both the others.
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.’ and Dave Barbe just stood up and said: ‘Well. Just about everything he knew he had learned together with Adam. he looked over at Malcolm who was just sitting against the wall on a chair. Malcolm felt. ‘OK. heart beating and thinking ‘Oh God’. A lot of the lyrics. What you’ve got to remember is that he won’t ﬂannel.’ and turned to Lee and Matthew. ‘Look. There were problems with the writing of the songs too. and now I want to do my own thing’.’ The problem there. straight in. I’m going to start writing the music. I’m leaving the band. He began to feel that he wasn’t responding to his leadership. it ain’t going right. They pressed ten to ﬁfteen thousand and they went in under a week.’ He couldn’t look Adam in the face but stared at the ﬂoor. and Adam thought ‘Well fair enough. This is the basic problem of two creative people together. all the way through he had written both music and lyrics McLaren was making the band steal guitar riffs from other songs and write from those. Adam was shocked. If it had gone through a major record company it would have undoubtedly got into the Top Ten.

look. He burst out. Adam felt then that it was Malcolm who had put them all up to it. ‘You’re not having the name . We’ll have to ﬁnd another drummer. he didn’t really want to say it. ‘Well. inasmuch as it left him with nothing. He was living in Earls Court again at this time. I’m keeping that’. if I can help. he was going to cry. and it was bound to grow if the ‘Antmusic’ ideas were put into practice. and then he didn’t see him any more. You should never work with your heroes. In a way it was a great burden lifted from Adam. Matthew. He stood on the landing and bawled like a baby. He phoned Jordan and told her that The Ants had split up. it was an all-time low. He found the nearest ﬂight of stairs and dashed up them as quickly as he could to get as far out of earshot as was possible before he burst out crying. He sat him down and said: ‘Look.’ ‘No. he looked over to Malcolm. He wished them good luck and left the room. He left the building and walked down the street. just give me a call. ‘Well. She went round to his ﬂat. why don’t we …’ said Matthew. then. and could she come round to his ﬂat that night. Adam felt himself about to break. go out and keep with The Ants because it’s a good idea. you’ve got to face up to it. You went up a spiral staircase
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. There is always a sense of freedom and clarity when it looks as though you’re ﬁnished. he had all those Ant people … ‘Look you mustn’t give in. It was all he really had to cling on to. Adam did not have nothing. I’m sorry. Jordan was disturbed.’ Adam called him the next day just to tell him that he was all right. how about it then?’ Matthew was the most upset by the whole affair.Adam and the Ants is my name. Malcolm came running after him and put his arm around him and took him to a restaurant. ‘I’m with Dave. he sounded completely devastated. you’ve got to get on with it.’ Adam looked at him ‘Oh yeah?’ He decided that he may as well play the whole thing out to the end.’ Malcolm had admiration for the way Adam had built up a following. just behind the station. looks like it’s you and me.’ said Lee. You don’t have to try any more.‘Well. it’s not the end of the world.

But you don’t want to duplicate something which you know they are going to do. they’re with Malcolm now. to get the most extreme reactions out of people. you walked in and fell over it. She knew that hers was the awful ra ra type of task where she would have to say that it was ‘all for the best’. but I want my name … I want the name Adam and the Ants. because Adam was coming from a different direction anyway. Jordan went in and found him standing there leaning against the wall. otherwise you’ll be left without a band and without a new sound. she could see he was still in a terrible state. Initially he thought ‘Fuck it . All that Adam could do was to keep repeating the phrase: ‘I made it very clear to them. ‘it’s all for the best. ‘No. thing. It was the very worst of the places he had lived in. keep that thing going. Malcolm was going for that anti-establishment ‘Pirate on the air waves. if you think it’s good. He had built up that following and he wanted to keep it. ‘Go out and look for a new band.’ said Jordan. no. it’s obvious it’s not going to tread on Malcolm’s toes. what do you think I should do about the material? I suppose I’ll have to throw it all away. He had painted the walls a curious mustard colour.and into a room that looked as if it had been intended as a cupboard.’ he said. keep the stuff. He was going for the heroic warrior. Malcolm gave him the subject matter but it was Adam that was giving it the treatment. You’ve done a lot of work on
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. ‘It’s really exciting. you’ve worked on it. change it in some way but keep that. you’ve got a new start.I’ll go and do something else and leave all these ideas. It wasn’t much bigger than a bed. no. It was the most important thing with him whilst being extraordinarily upset.’ He wanted that name. She had gone a bit berserk thinking at ﬁrst that he had caused it all. ‘You’re better off without them’. she said.’ but Jordan said: ‘You’ve got to get on with this. But keep the Burundi beat. they can have everything … the band’s not with me anymore. because ‘he does like to put the cat among the pigeons’.’ Jordan had called Malcolm as soon as she had heard about the split and had it out with him.’ A lot of the lyrics that Adam had done Malcolm just threw away and didn’t want to use.’ ‘Well. he wanted to keep the link with the public: the name.

He couldn’t ask him then and there because Andy Warren’s girlfriend was in Rema Rema. He was playing the ﬁeld. He met him again working in ‘Johnson’s’ always wearing SEX clothes. and he knew it would have upset him if he’d stolen their guitarist. from The New York Dolls. very menacing’. They thought of Marco Pirroni immediately. He took Robert Fripp top the cleaners. The two of them began to talk about the new band. he was a very early punk. He’d been taught by Johnny Thunders. a really ballsy sound. to think what he would to and then act. He had to come down from his artistic high horse. Adam leapt at the idea. A lot of bands had asked Marco to join and he had turned them all down. Adam had seen Marco playing with The Models when they and The Ants played together at Crayford Town Hall in 1977. He had weird green coloured hair and he was ‘really horrible. always looking very smart. he wanted a writing partner who would be capable of understanding all these new ideas and able to bring them to fruition as quickly as possible. shedding the old band like a skin. Adam had always thought he was a good dresser. He had ﬁrst laid eyes on Marco in Chelsea. and be more of an idol.this project with Malcolm. and Malcolm’s made a mistake. who was one of Adam’s favourite guitarists.’ Adam was determined then to try and work with him.’ she said.
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. he was the guy to phone in this sort of situation because he was one of the best guitarists there was. He had learned from Malcolm how to work with other people.’ Jordan told McLaren this. He was a ‘big bloke’ and Adam was scared of him. Adam had thought then that he was ‘magic. knowing really that he was now in competition with Malcolm to get the Burundi idea out as quickly as possible. He lacked a band and Malcolm lacked a vocalist. use the name of the band more . Marco’. and was also without a band at the moment . ‘I’m going to push myself harder and harder. but Adam didn’t just want a band member. Adam did a very clever thing. He decided to try and see things like Malcolm would. saying to himself. he’d got good sound. He pushed himself out of the corner. use my image. Then he saw him again in another band Rema Rema ‘which was like one big feedback nightmare and I still thought he was good. ‘You’ve got the wrong band.

and Adam said: ‘I haven’t got a band any more’. called Kings of the Wild Frontier. Adam was pleased. an old enemy. He put a note through the letter box instead saying ‘I want to work with you. over a cup of tea. Marco was very impressed with the work he and Malcolm had done.Adam went straight to Marco’s house to make him the proposition of a songwriting partnership. There were headlines like ‘McLaren kicks Adam out of the Ants’. and had decided that he didn’t want to play heavy songs like Overground. call me. all right then. Adam Ant’.’ he replied. ‘Oh dear.
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. By the time they met a few days later in a cake shop in Covent Garden. for he had heard that Marco was going to join The Banshees. had found out and blown the story to the press. ‘Yeah. just to start from scratch. Nick Kent. But Marco had played with The Banshees on their ﬁrst gig at The Vortex. he had been a long time admirer of Adam’s work but at the same time felt it needed a bigger ‘push’. Malcolm’s veil of secrecy had been broken. He was out. since Kenny and John had just left Siouxsie. They decided to write. most of which constituted a song which he could never make work with the other three. ‘Do you want to write songs with me?’ asked Adam. They sat in the cake shop. Adam played him some of the melodies that he had come up with. there was very little explaining for Adam to do.’ said Marco.

Nineteen – Working hard for their moment
Marco and Adam sat with two acoustic guitars with their ﬁngers over the strings in order to make a dead percussive sound. leaﬂets. Adam frequently had his favourite ‘armchairs’.then the obvious thing to include would be a dollop of ‘Hoist the Jolly Rogers’. Adam hit the opening lyric: ‘A new royal family. They were going cher chunk cher chunk cher chunk cher chunk. They treated the writing of a song rather like an empty room that had to be furnished. The two of them had changed their whole idea of how a song should be written. we are the family. say it was Pirates . the emotion. The principle of taking things from The Ants paraphernalia.. so that they could move a great many different and varied ideas in. Their way of working most simply explained was this: Adam would bring lyrics and lots and lots of ideas.they were making Antmusic. the guitar sound. others would have to go out of the window. Each song would have a theme. Antmusic is the banner. They had become unafraid to include the obvious. and Marco played a twangy lead piece inspired by people like Link Wray. Everything about the new songs was strong. and have continued to write ever since. reviews etc. Basically this is the way they wrote ‘Kings’. Some would have to be moved around.
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. The review said this: ‘The Ants have been working hard for their “moment”. a sound that hadn’t been heard for a long time.’ They were putting into practice all the things Adam had realised with Malcolm . those things that would be most immediately effective. the visual images. It’s interesting to read the ﬁrst review that Adam ever had and compare it to Antmusic. which Marco would say no to. Antpeople are the warriors. was adopted as Malcolm had suggested. the beat. a wild nobility.

less concerned with itself only. strangely. but the best bands never are. He now had a Gold Album on his ofﬁce wall. are not an “immediate” band. a style that reaches out and cross-fertilises itself with all sorts of things. He stalks the stage like an amnesiac lost in a funhouse. Listening to Antmusic being played on this machine with him make you very aware of the odd juxtaposition that Antmusic is. He was appalled by the incident with Malcolm. No contract was signed between them.like taking lemon tea in the intensive care ward. Falcon was acting as manager.uh what? The Ants. vocalist and composer of the band’s set twitched and hiccoughed his way through the songs. the man who had come to see The Ants right at the beginning in The Alaska studios and had given them the gigs at The Man in the Moon. with their barbed sound . It’s the kind of distilled type of rock ‘n’ roll that while being rather powerful and emotional is also at the same time a parody of rock itself. Yay! Wonderfully disturbing. divinely exhilarating . ‘It’s the lowest form of art. sold a lot of records and had split. and he was managing quite a few bands.and jugular attack. baybee. and learn about addition. They began writing an enormous amount because so many things were open to them. unplugged his stereo too and got rid of it in favour of an old Sixties Dansette-type machine. comedy.Pursed lips drop open and genuine astonishment rules the waves once more. Marco Pirroni had. history. X-Ray Spex had become a success. 24.’ said Adam. Both of them had realized that rock music is the pits. He offered to help Adam and Marco sort out all the business that lay ahead. The new songs were crossing over into a ﬁeld that was more showy than rock. Unplug the jukebox kids. ﬁts the Burundi rhythm of Antmusic ‘So unplug the jukebox and do us all a favour’. He preferred the sound to the more advanced systems. He
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.77 That last line. anything.9. ﬁlms. Adam.’ Jane Suck. Adam and Marco went to see Falcon Stewart. searching for his face . his falsetto outbursts coming as a welcome relief to the monotone slur. Falcon was still working as a manager. standing slightly outside the tradition of English music. at this time. Sounds. so de rigeur of this ‘scene’. but in effect.

he was a business adviser. when he came to see me. he knew that Malcolm had ‘thrown away the best thing that was there. Even though Adam had come to Falcon with nothing. ‘What happened was that Adam admired Malcolm’s games. and do it. when that was done he would be free to build everything up from the beginning again. the incident with Malcolm had provided a full stop to one part of Adam’s career.’ In many ways. and Marco had never heard the
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. The company and the artist no longer saw eye to eye. start from square one again. Adam admired the way Malcolm manipulated people. Less than three weeks after their meeting in the cake shop. The reality was quite different.’ Falcon had no intention of interfering with the art side at all. The ﬁrst thing to do now was to get straight into the studio. Kings of the Wild Frontier would have to wait. They had to decide upon a number and chose Cartrouble from the Do It ‘Dirk’ album.’ He wanted him to forget all about the incident. It was all fantasy. and lost a fortune.’ ‘Adam had ﬁnally sussed out. his songs and his singing. but to get themselves free of the Do It deal. Found that fascinating. So of course there was no chance that they could work together at all. which is right. Things had been getting a little fraught at Do It. ‘Get it out of your head. there were many disputes. though. Adam and Marco were in Rockﬁeld Studios recording.’ He felt that Adam was like someone who had just had a ﬁght with his older brother and lost. Don’t fuck around. the pair of them would rework it. He’s not going to have anybody tell him how to do that. not to record all the new ideas he and Marco had. That’s why he wanted to work with him. Adam’s the last person who’s going to be manipulated directly when it comes to his art. there is no substitute for having to get on and do something. that he was going nowhere with the sort of thing he had been doing before. It was a good start to their relationship.believed that it would have been impossible for Adam and Malcolm ever to work together. His ﬁrst words to him were: ‘Well … basically. Adam was only contracted for one more single. mainly about sales ﬁgures. They had two days to record Cartrouble and Kick. People only wrote about him just to slag him off. The trust had gone. That was the end of the line from a press point of view.

but thought that they probably wouldn’t be able to afford it. They were free of any contracts now and ready to put together a band. like a blitz. It was a good sound. like The Glitter band. and got him to play in the new band. Chris Hughes was ‘luckily’ around at the time. Adam would also have liked Johnny Bivouac from the ﬁrst Ants band. working with Do It. If you play the version on the album. and living in her ﬂat was a young man called Kevin. now known as Merrick.’ and recorded the bass line again himself. Kevin agreed. having to tell him again and again what the rhythm is. and visualise them on stage. it was like an upward struggle with a wet ﬁsh. But when he began to think about it. Marco got in touch with Terry who had been the drummer in The Models. They had the idea of using two drummers. He had just the right type of face for the band and was sitting there playing No Lip on a bass guitar. then lift off the needle and play the single . The guitars are strong. and Adam’s voice is that of someone who’s determined to win. They asked him to produce. but he had started a group of his own. and in the course of recording Cartrouble he also became the drummer. The ﬁrst begins with a standard thump thump thump in just the way a million and one other songs do. Marco did all the guitars on the record while Adam sat in the gallery. the type of technique which is totally unmusical and treats the listener as if he’s an idiot. Then Marco walked in and said.songs before. It’s the ﬁrst piece of the warrior voice of Adam Ant. but in this instance he didn’t want to take up the controls. and anyway he thought it better that someone more involved with Adam should do it. When he sang ‘Push Push Push’ before. The recording with Marco however is a whole different ball game. Falcon Stewart had been producer as well as manager for X-Ray Spex. The main thing Adam wanted to achieve was to get out on the
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. They needed a producer. So they still needed a bass player. Adam was the ﬁrst one into the studio when they began and he put down the bass line and a rhythm machine. ‘It’s not good enough. He was a busy man. he could see that it would look and sound very strong. looking after several acts. Adam was impressed by this and asked him to join the band. Adam was visiting Eve.you could hardly compare the two.

Adam and Marco turned up with the tape at Jordan’s basement ﬂat in Hyde Park Square. it wasn’t very much. They felt sure it was going to work this time. alias Jayne Vincent. They had no record company to back a tour and no money of their own. they got an advance of ﬁve thousand pounds for a three year contract. bitterly disappointed. The only music publisher that was interested in signing him was EMI. but somehow it just wasn’t coming together in the studio. it wasn’t punchy enough. but not just as good .’ So he had to get back on the road and prove that in fact that he was still just as good as ever. ‘I think it’s awful. The song just didn’t gel. ‘He didn’t have a band any longer . No one else was interested because he was so discredited. he’s a joke if you get involved with him you need your head seeing to’. The next version they played to her was ‘the one’.better. The Ants Invasion Tour. Kings turned out to be a ‘real bugger of a song to record’. From a practical point of view Adam knew that there was a huge audience out there. EMI only really took them on because they were unaware of what had happened. It was just a whole lot of drums ‘with all this shouting’ . Anybody who was in touch with the street was saying ‘Adam is ﬁnished. the Ants’ make-up artist. but a whole army of disillusioned punks who had tired of the grey music that was being sold to them.
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.as Marco described it.road and prove that he still existed. So they went back to the studio and recorded it all over again. Before they went on tour. not just the established supporters. And it was crucial that he do it as quickly as possible. With this money they ﬁnanced a tour. the voice wasn’t right. It was only EMI that was sufﬁciently out of touch. To raise some money they had to sign with a music publisher. All in all it took seventy hours to record. and played it to her and Mandy Donohe. Something was missing. they recorded the Kings of the Wild Frontier single and Press Darlings at Matrix Studios. because all his fans thought he was ﬁnished. which was the funniest thing in the whole affair. Falcon negotiated a deal with them. They both looked at each other and knew that it was nowhere near the mark. Adam and Marco had gone over the lyrics again and again and knew that they were sound.’ said Jordan. Adam and Marco got their dream.all wiped out.

On several occasions he had got through a whole box of tea bags in one sitting. plan the tour. as an unveiling of the band for their friends. record the single. It was to be the ﬁrst time the new band would be on stage together. He’d been over to Bernam and Nathan’s. The band were all incredibly enthusiastic. Adam was out to prove to everyone that it could be done and that their faith had been taken on good trust. Falcon summed up that time as manager like this: ‘Do It single. Whiteing came up with a jacket which had last been worn by David Hemmings in The Charge of the Light Brigade. It wasn’t the old Adam any more. The Ants played the whole thing like a real gig. designing the makeup. Adam felt sure that he had all the details of the band correct. he was writing stronger lyrics. go on the road. They looked great. the theatrical costumiers. Everyone said to each other afterwards ‘He’s done it!’ The whole thing had come together quickly. Adam was the most athletic he had been for years. and then hope that some record company would come and see the bloody band and want to sign!’ The tour began in London. Adam hired it for the tour. It wasn’t the bloke who had always seemed introverted. The new songs shone out and the ballroom began to move. for Kevin it was his ﬁrst time on stage. put the band together. on home ground at The Electric Ballroom. it was their ﬁrst tour together. and those who though it would be a disaster and good for a laugh. and discussing the lyrics. Jordan and Adam got a cab to John Henry’s. They ran through the pouring rain. He spent the preceding weeks learning to play the bass.They decided to do a private show at John Henry’s Studio. From the moment he walked in he knew exactly what he wanted. and got a new jacket. It was ﬁlled with the faithful and the curious. that always seems to be about on these occasions. and arrived at the small studio.
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. They just looked at each other and began to sing Cartrouble. He spoke to Charles David Whiteing who worked there and described the type of thing he wanted. Everyone was impressed and taken aback because it was a new sound being punched out. and on the way it got a puncture. There were about thirty people there. After hours and hours of talking with friends long into the night.

A lot of the earlier Ants songs were a bit repetitive in mood and didn’t need so much emotion or vocal ﬁnesse as these did. The songs had become vocally a little bit more of a strain. The band looked and sounded more invincible than any that had appeared in England for a long time.
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. If you do too much you can get in a state vocally. so Adam had to discover for himself a happy medium where he could still look good and move but also sing well. so he was learning to get that all together. and conserving energy when he could.Adam soon discovered exactly how powerful the songs were on stage that night.

and wearing a skull and crossbones ring which Johnny Thunders had given Marco.Twenty – The invasion
The band set off for the Midlands only for Adam to ﬁnd out that once again a tour was going to be dogged by bad planning and awful venues. This meant that people would have to join the day before and then come back and buy a ticket. or sneeze. The night before the gig Jordan and Mandy were working away on the costumes. They dreaded that someone might open the door. The club had bought in a rule which said that you had to be a member to see the gig. Consequently on the day of the show the Top Rank in Birmingham was the scene of bitter arguments between would-be customers and the velvet jacket boys with the bow ties. When Adam found out what had happened he was furious. He had started to hang trinkets and things from his clothes as well. and Adam wanted something similar. obviously all those people who had travelled from a distance wouldn’t be aware of this. Jordan had made him a set of twelve braids of hair. One of the biggest problems was in Birmingham. There were only about twenty people in the place
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. They were in a ﬂat in Birmingham surrounded by hundreds of feathers. The Indians used to paint dashes on their feathers for the number of people they had killed. By the time the show was due to start the next evening those who had been arguing all day outside the Top Rank had got very bored and disappeared. The band sat around wondering if the gig was going to happen at all. The two girls sat on the ﬂoor all evening with a pot of ink painting stripes and dots on feathers. She had dyed them to his colour and drawing-pinned them to the back of the door to dry. Never did Indian squaw work so long for brave. By the morning there were feathers lying out to dry on every available surface in the room. Adam had decided to hang feathers from his clothes and asked them to help paint them. so that he could have fresh ones each night.

‘Look. sneaking through the alleyways and hiding behind the dustbins. ‘Yeah.with half an hour to go. Peter Vague. Despair. A few more people came in.’ they all said and began complaining bitterly about it. ‘Have any of you been standing outside the Adam and the Ants gig for hours?’ she asked. ‘Look. Edinburgh. getting in free had lifted their spirits. Adam was back stage doing his nut. Perhaps this was going to be another tour like the others but with emptier toilets. All this should have been worked out before. It was just a few minutes before they were due to go on stage. They spoke to the man on the door. Practically the whole audience was in pubs and on street corners across the centre of Birmingham. I’ll get you all in.I’ve got people from the pub. Jordan. letting a few in at a time saying to each ‘Act natural’. Jordan got to the front door and went in. don’t you?’ She told them all to go as discreetly as possible to the back door of the Top Rank. they’d got so fed up with trying to get in they’d gone for a drink instead. She went to the back and quietly opened the door.’ she said. She went and saw him. The disco was playing and Pete Vague and all the old faithfuls were there jumping about as much as they could to try and make it look a bit fuller. Shefﬁeld. Jordan left the building and made a mad dash down to one of Birmingham’s best known pubs. smiling nicely at the huge security men who were stopping all and sundry.’ The band went out to a warm reception. It was the discreetest bunch of multicoloured punks ever seen. destroying the tablemats and carving their names in the carpet. She went through to the back room and there sitting bored and fed up were a load of punks. Dundee in
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. Jordan? You really fancy yourself as her. the best I could do . All of them having to get the ﬁrst train back to London from places like Bradford. She walked in and saw a load of skinheads leering at her through beer and crisps. Most of the friends of the band were there for every gig: Mandy. there was no way they could do anything about it. One of the girls looked up at her and said: ‘Who do you think you are.

Still. causing many to miss the last bus and train home. But not many bands can equal the excitement they generate onstage and in the audience. They got up on the stage and told Adam to make everyone to move back. and then the bouncers went nuts. in New Music News. they’d argue it was worth it. The show produced one of the ﬁrst reviews of the new band. a sell out. It wasn’t really equipped for a rock audience. and they’d be right. They opened and closed with the new single. despite the buzz the tour was causing. This was a wonderfully powerful display by a band that have had too much rough treatment from self-styled “discerning” critics for too long. There were no bar facilities.35 p. Adam was very annoyed. the Ants came on at 11. Supporting them that night was Dave Berry. and there were problems there too. The last date of the tour arrived. Naturally when the crowd pushed forward all the barriers fell over. They had put up metal barriers two feet from the stage in an attempt to stop the crush. Their last port of call was the Empire Ballroom. it threw a black shadow over the evening.m. which ran: ‘With the show running ridiculously late. with a few newies like Ants Invasion. nearly all of them overreacting because they weren’t used to seeing such a following. especially on songs with heavy drum intros like Kick and Cartrouble. their sound knocks you backwards. bound to put the record companies off. the sixties singer who Adam had always admired. Forget the bondage bullshit. Killer in the Home (the best of the new ones) and
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. I can’t understand the prejudice against them. the chant-like Kings of the Wild Frontier and played mostly old stuff. and this show demonstrated all of that with new guitarist Marco Pirroni and two synchronized drummers. London. and still no record company had made any move towards them. Adam consistently writes lyrically strong and tuneful songs and they’ve produced three excellent singles (although the album was disappointing). but there were bouncers everywhere.order to get to work in the morning. The place was packed.

they felt. who was still hoping to sign the band back to Decca now that it was a completely new company. wanted to kill for his art. Adam preserved a bit of distance. As soon as Betteridge met him he knew he wanted to sign him up: ‘Meeting Adam did it for me. He went over and talked to them in their ofﬁces in Soho Square. he was bright. he was well aware that CBS was a big enough organization to handle his success if it came. There were teething troubles
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. David Betteridge had been wanting to sign Adam for as long as two years before but he hadn’t had enough faith in his management company. The man from Decca was quite upset. hungry. he felt that the man from CBS was going to ‘get it’. but three. Not one company had come that night. He was invited to meet David Betteridge. the band behind wasn’t strong enough then to back Adam’s energy. Adam . the Managing Director. as far as I was concerned. When you get artists like that you realize how many lazy artists there are about. nobody from the record companies had shown up. they were very eager to sign them up. The whole performance underlined how unfair it is that they’ve been left so out in the cold.did his usual whirling dervish act. They were taken aback by the new combination. Financially they had been walking on a knife edge. if no A & R people came that night. With Adam’s old band. I liked him.a white stripe painted from ear to ear and feathers dangling from his trousers . Howard Thompson from CBS. it was true. Simon Draper from Virgin and Tracey Bennet. it never quite happened because there was a basic imbalance. he wanted to make sure that this time it was the right deal.a po-faced version of YMCA to keep everyone happy. Jane Garcia. then they were ﬁve thousand quid down the drain. For the whole of the tour. The managing director of CBS. Having seen the show they all agreed that they wanted to sign the band each to their own labels.’ They signed on July 16th to CBS. CBS asked to see Falcon Stewart.

people sat around listening to all the new releases. Adam and Marco going into the studio ﬁrst and making demo tapes on bass. the new sound was going to take a while longer before it would be acceptable to that giant tortoise. to Rockﬁeld Studios to record the album. headphones on working away. guitar. A miserable time for everyone. which wasn’t bad at all. Kings Of The Wild Frontier was a hard album to record. Meanwhile in the rooms off long polished corridors in the BBC where radio play and Top of the Pops is decided. Very often Marco was in the studio. Despite the excitement of the writing and the new sound. registering every week in the alternative charts. rhythm machine and vocals. Often the things that happen accidentally are some of the best moments. David Betteridge spent long afternoons ironing it all out with him. The Ants record by a process of layers. each member of the band recording on his own until the original demo is covered entirely over. One of the main problems is. Then the whole process is repeated. there was no place for any of the vocals or band parts just to slip into the background. because of the nature of the music every part had to be strong and ‘up front’. It entered the charts at number ﬁfty-three. Adam and the Ants watched the record slide down the charts. It’s a process of trial and error. and Adam would come over on his headphones with comments like ‘If you get this right this time. then I’ve got a nice Birds Eye chocolate mousse for you in the fridge’. trying to keep some of the original mistakes. and then went up to forty-eight. yet ‘Dirk’ was still high up there. the mass market. selling solidly. It was still just that bit too early for success. funnily. When ‘Kings’ was put on in such places the decision was simple and direct: ‘too raucous and too raunchy’.at ﬁrst: Adam didn’t get on with the Product Manager who was in charge of liaison between the A & R department and Marketing. It was also damning. Adam was very upset that he didn’t really seem to understand how he wanted the career of The Ants to progress. CBS took Kings of the Wild Frontier and released it within nine days of their signing. Very disappointed they went off to Monmouth. The whole album was put
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. Everyone around the band prepared themselves to watch eagerly as the most exciting single for a long time climbed up the charts.

which is next to nothing when bands can spend up to thirty thousand pounds on videos. They decided to use it for the cover. and this was one way of getting a better deal with the company. however. was a very static video. The Ants decided to make the video themselves and they did it for three hundred pounds. When they found they hadn’t had their easy hit.
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. just as Adam did. they thought it was going to be a big single. it wasn’t worth their while to promote it. CBS were very worried. just the band in a very white studio. What it did provide. They had on their hands a top ten single that only wanted to go to number ﬁfty. there was no way it would salvage the single. The title single was actually dropping out of the charts while they were making the album too. They also knew full well that they would pretty soon have to record another album. They had been forced to sign on with CBS for two albums in the ﬁrst year because they knew it was going to be a very expensive band to promote. however.together on this promise. capturing exactly that ‘wild nobility’. very demoralising. they were severely jolted. Forty two still were put on including what is probably one of the most perfect pictures ever taken of Adam. ‘What’s going on?’ they were asking. They knew it was the one. The reason ‘Kings’ didn’t make it was the lack of radio play but the reason it got as far as it did was because thousands of ‘Antpeople’ went out and bought it straight away. The result. was the sleeve for the album. Consequently CBS wouldn’t make a video for ‘Kings’.

Twenty-one – Overnight
One day, when Marco and Adam had ﬁrst started to write together they were sitting around reading the papers. Adam was reading an article about Margaret Thatcher when something caught his eye. He called Marco over and underlined a line in the paper with his ﬁnger. ‘What do you think of that for the title of a song?’ said Adam. ‘Yeah’, replied Marco. ‘Dog eat Dog, it’s very good.’ It’s the perfect type of phrase for Antmusic simple because you can’t even say it without giving it a certain rhythm and attack. For Adam, of course, it was also a phrase he could sing with emotion. It was very close to his own experience of recent months. The ‘rock’ business seemed to him to be a battle between bands where any tactics were fair. There are also connotations that draw to the mind the ‘doggy’ of another band not so far away. Dog Eat Dog is one of their strongest tracks. It’s what I would call the ‘front line’ of Antmusic, and is the song to open the album. When you think of how depressing and frustrating the career of the Ants had been then you can hear an extra resonance behind the words ‘It’s easy to lay down and hide/Where’s the warrior with out his pride?’ They decided to launch another attack on the public with a single and it was Dog Eat Dog that was chosen. On the B side they put another of Adam’s early songs which was again extensively reworked. Physical (You’re so), a version of Whip in my Valise, like the new Cartrouble is fresh, powerful, and strengthened by Marco’s distinctive guitar sound and the drumming. After the strong solo vocal beginning Adam throws in an aside ‘Eat your heart out DO IT’, which proves what conﬁdence Adam had in the release. CBS released the single on 3rd October 1980 and it entered the charts at number 50, only slightly better than ‘Kings’. By the next week however it had got to number 37. Lots of people had been saying for years that if Adam got on to the television then he would become an instant success because
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of his charm, performance and good looks. The BBC’s Top of the Pops show would clinch it. Eleven million people, we are told, buy singles in this country and the greater part of them watch Top of the Pops. It is, then, very very important for bands to play the show. The system is that if enough of your records are sold in the shops these people frequent then you will be put in the programme. The problem is that you have to wait till the very last moment. The programme is recorded on a Wednesday; Tuesday evening is spent by many bands pacing up and down waiting for the phone. The Ants, however, weren’t eagerly awaiting a call. The BBC didn’t like the last one and so there was no reason they should like this. They were just going about their business of recording the album when the phone in the Ants ofﬁce rang. Someone had dropped out of that weeks show at the last moment, and when the new charts were compiled Dog Eat Dog had shot from number thirty-seven to nineteen, just safely in the Top Twenty. They telephoned Rockﬁeld Studios and Marco answered. They were all taken by surprise not having a clue how Top of the Pops was done. The next afternoon they were entering the gate of the BBC in Shepherd’s Bush. It’s a huge imposing building, circular in the shape of three enormous Polo mints stuck together. Everyone can look into each others ofﬁces. The BBC was the inspiration for George Orwell’s 1984. The Ants walked through the ugly corridors towards the studio. Nobody really told them what to do. Everyone else seemed to know the routine. They stood around, nervous and unsure. Where was all the glamour? It was like a ships boiler room. The whole of the BBC could do with a lick of paint. The time came for their rehearsal and they went through their paces, Adam wearing camouﬂage trousers and a waistcoat. Gradually they got to know the ropes and by the actual recording the band was on form, punching out their new look and sound from bowels of the BBC. Falcon said afterwards ‘We did Top of the Pops with that kind of exciting look, and a record that sounded different and then it was all over, overnight.’ By the ﬁrst week in November the very top positions of the charts were having to ﬁght of the invasion of The Ants as Dog Eat
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Dog pitched in at number four. They were ‘pop stars’ they had also gained a little unwelcome notoriety. As Adam was leaving the Top of the Pops studio after the show with his girlfriend, Mandy and Kevin, another band, the 4be2’s were leaving a different studio. They had decided to have a look in on the ‘Pops’ and met The Ants on the way out. Adam and Jock McDonald came to blows over things that had been said to Mandy. The newspapers had a ﬁeld day: The Daily Mail ran the headline: ‘Punk stars in Top of the Pops Riot’, the sort of typical Mail article that had always suspected the ‘punk stars’ would one day would start ﬁghting on TOTP. ‘In the incident, Adam and the Ants - who appeared on the show with their current hit Dog Eat Dog - were seen pushing and shufﬂing with three of the four-man group 4be2.’ Daily Mail The BBC said: ‘Three people were asked to leave the studio audience after they started jigging around in front of the cameras. Outside, but on BBC premises, they were involved in a minor fracas with Adam and the Ants.’ Scotland Yard said: ‘We get called to dozens of similar disputes all over London every night, as far as we’re concerned, this was a trivial incident which did not even necessitate a report being made out.’ Later that evening both Adam and Kevin were nursing some bad bruises. Adam had not had his glasses on, or contact lenses in and hadn’t really been able to see who was coming at him. At the start of the ﬁght he was jumped from behind anyway. To Adam it was not a trivial incident. He began thinking about the future and what it would hold: if he became a big pop star then he would be continually in danger of being attacked or mobbed. He began talking to Falcon about security. After Number Four the single began to fall out of the charts again. Again CBS hadn’t made a video for it. When you’ve got a record at number four you should really get some of the image of the band to other record markets, a British Top Ten hit creates a lot of interest abroad. You should make a video and ship it all around the world. Somebody from The Ants was in CBS every day, to get things done. There were so many opportunities open, they had waited and
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even though not one member of the band enjoyed touring at all. They wouldn’t have to pay for the photos. he would give his and Falcon would take the rest. however had had a taste if Adam. The idea of the catalogue was to give something back to the fans. obviously because there are probably only twelve major venues in the country. It was also like a ‘welcome’ to all the new Ant fans in the recent months. All the band jumped up and cheered. they were people with ideas and character. The Nation. but of course it was the ﬁrst big one. he knew that he was talking sense and that such an insert would play a part in establishing the band. however. They were sitting in a hotel room when the ﬁrst news of the new album chart came through. He went and saw David Betteridge himself about it and sat in his ofﬁce one afternoon and explained the whole thing. They weren’t going to be a ‘one hit wonder’ .worked so long it would be foolish to let it all go again. They didn’t want to do this at all. Dog Eat Dog would have gone further. Adam was set on doing a mammoth thirty ﬁve date nationwide excursion. Adam wanted to include a free booklet and catalogue with it but the company wouldn’t have this at all. someone would have to print it. David Betteridge was convinced by him. it was very mixed. Adam however. To play thirty-ﬁve dates you are going to have to play a lot of smaller places. Again not all the venues would be right. left the room
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. Few bands would attempt as much. it’s an excellent single. It was obviously the time to release the album. It was far too expensive to include such a thing. On the ninth they had begun a new tour.they had been around. They were playing some big venues but not always. they were greeted with a great boost. By the time they got to Edinburgh. Adam himself compiled the catalogue of ‘Antshows and events’ which traces the development of the band from 1976 onwards. they had paid their dues. It was obvious they would have to do another tour on the release of the album. The album was released on November the seventh. was convinced that it was the right thing to do. someone would have to put it in the sleeve. The album had entered at Number Four. it would also show that they weren’t a band who had suddenly just popped up out of nowhere like so many bands do. and you can never go that far when you’re still building an audience. and what is called a ‘phenomenon’ had already begun to take root.

In Hull. They had a large set which simulated a ship. steadily climbed the charts during the course of the tour so the situation was getting like it hadn’t been since The Beatles. which is always a bad time for new bands.and began running up and down the corridor shouting ‘Number Four. was rehoused in the full sized Manchester Apollo. During the tour they released Antmusic as well with a B side Fall In written by Adam and his old frind Lester Square. Back on tour however. When they arrived the whole place was jam-packed. with two great bows at the front end of which lights streamed like cannon ﬁre. attacking parked cars because they couldn’t get in. Adam was maddened the whole time by the inefﬁciency of the promoters. Antmusic too. Even down to the simple things like putting up enough posters. Marco remembered the tour by saying: ‘Out of all of us I was the most depressed and Adam. The crew weren’t able to cope with it all. or cancelled altogether. they couldn’t play there at all. All this caused the band much heartache. Number Four!’ Everyone in the other rooms wondered what on Earth was going on. and is. however. second. they were meeting with all sorts of problems. Lester was. four hundred extra people turned up and tried to burn the place down. they found the same in Shrewsbury and Lincoln. They had to cancel at Manchester Poly because the place could only hold eight hundred people. The Manchester concert. They got to some venues only to ﬁnd that their set couldn’t even ﬁt on the stage or worse. Halfway through the tour the crew was sacked and a new team employed. still working with The Monochrome Set.’ The crowds turning up for the shows were so far above what they had expected some of them had to be transferred to larger venues. The owner insisted that
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. At the back of the stage was a backdrop which ﬂew high the ‘Antlogo’ that Adam’s college friend Danny Kleinman had designed. In Shefﬁeld some of the disappointed customers caused trouble in the streets. Number Four. The owner of the HMV record shop in Leeds asked if The Ants would do an autograph signing session in the shop. Although the album began to fall after that the tour helped to keep it up in the Top Twenty throughout the Christmas rush. The show was cancelled.

who was down with the crowd. It was the natural. David Betteridge looked towards Mr Goddard: his mouth had fallen open. He was sitting with Adam’s father and stepmother. The CBS people had turned out in force. they saw at ﬁrst hand the power of the appeal of the band they had signed. As they walked through the extravagant foyer of the Lyceum. Sadly this would mean that a section of the audience. The man from The Times wasn’t really sure how to deal with it all. he would obviously have been much more at home with a Tchaikovsky night at The Festival Hall. they had lost a friend and gained a hero. moving up and down. As soon as Adam came on the stage the audience went berserk. he couldn’t believe what he was seeing. The Chairman of CBS was very eager to see them working up close and decided to ‘get down with the kids’ right at the front of the auditorium.only one person was allowed in at a time. in the red velvet ﬂap back seats sat David Betteridge the Managing Director. the Goddards. cheering. many of them seeing the band for the ﬁrst time. unavoidable consequence of being ‘taken into the nation’s heart’ as a new idol. Adam felt this too and was conscious of it throughout the performance. immediately beat a hasty retreat. surging to the front. bedecked with people clambering to see them. signing autograph after autograph watching the queue outside the window steadily grow until it was a thousand strong. Even The Guardian and The Times reviewers were there. and the next day they printed the strangest type of reviews which were obviously meant to explain to the parents why their offspring were going mad the night before. playing the same venue that they had used to ﬁnish The Ants Invasion Tour. The ﬁnal night of the tour at the Lyceum in London was tumultous. The Ants sat in a line. It was the crossover point from the ‘street’ to universal appeal. It was the ﬁrst time they had been to see him perform. would feel left behind. Up in the gallery. namely those that had stuck with the band through thick and thin. behind the golden chandeliers. The Chairman of the company. He liked it but he could
only express it like this:
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. This time the atmosphere was very different. He stared around him at all those who had dressed up in the clothes of a new sensation. he couldn’t believe it was his son.

they produced a hit single and a wonderful album called King of the Wild Frontier … it is a very exciting.’ (?!) He had a rather quaint way of talking about ‘gigs’ too: ‘a well rehearsed method reminiscent of a now-forgotten group called Mr Big. The group’s concert would be marvellous if only Adam weren’t such a prat … the group’s rallying cry is “Antmusic for Sexpeople .’ The Guardian lady was a lot less kind but her review was dogged by the fact that she had totally misunderstood everything and. The Melody Maker were equally behind in their review of the album. as is often the case with that paper. physical sound and it has style. It was unfortunate that in this case it was misdirected. to everyone’s astonishment.‘There is an undeniable and often proven excitement to be had from the sight and sound of two trap drummers resolutely performing synchronized or unison ﬁgures. it’s not Adam who was the prat … All this goes to show how Adam and the Ants had crossed over to being part of ‘showbusiness’ rather than just the limited ﬁeld of rock. ‘Recently. he isn’t very sexy. It’s an old trick and it never works. not
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. a few printing errors too.Sexmusic for Antpeople”. if not humour. who attained a limited popularity around the London clubs ﬁve or six seasons back.’ It’s only in papers like The Guardian that you get such direct uses of expletives like ‘prat’.’ Adam Sweeting
Little did they know that it was about to soar up the charts. On it’s release they predicted that it would never sell: ‘A laborious sense of someone trying to make a point – “We are stylists and reckless and we’d be very grateful if you’d buy multiple copies of our new album”.

Not only would people buy the album but also anything else. on reﬂection. van. moments before they were due to go on the air someone rushed on the stage with the news that Antmusic was at number two and the album had travelled all the way back up the charts to Number One. after doing long sessions with journalist after journalist. catching everyone’s imagination. the whole thing had been. having a record that
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. Several members of the band were suffering from fatigue. Dog Eat Dog was a Top Ten record and Antmusic went to Number Two only being held off the Number One slot by the re-release of John Lennon’s Imagine. Two days before the end of The Frontier Tour the band went on Top of the Pops again. they show a band growing. still comparatively new to playing live. They all leapt up and down shouting out as they had done in Edinburgh a couple of months before. perfectly timed. ADAM AND THE ANTS. By the time the album was at Number One the band was exhausted. that had been made by The Ants. stage. this time with Antmusic which was heading steadily up towards the Number Two position. On 20th January the band were recording a show for Australian television. Quite frankly the tour had been exhausting and the band could have done with a rest. as with the rise of punk.once. but throughout Adam insisted on doing them all and giving as much as he could. to the extent that the charts would be existing to display the success of one band only. What these chart numbers show is much more than sales. Number One!’ Even though the success of the singles had been totally surprising and none of them had behaved as anyone had expected. but twice. for Kevin. Unfortunately. however old. it was just one long blur of van. It was a very difﬁcult and strenuous job just to keep up with the interviews. but this time it was ‘Number One. They often forgot what town they were in.they could do it. the Melody Maker was caught with it’s trousers down. What you need to have a big successful album (apart from good music) is to have three singles and each one to be bigger than the last. ‘Kings’ had earned them some ‘chart credibility’ for the ﬁrst time . stage. the music being accepted and Adam becoming a ‘star’ with charisma which goes beyond the normal run of the mill pop personality. Once again. The attitude of the music industry toward the band was summed up in the words of The Ants manager ‘It’s going to be a monster’.

’ She laughed at him thinking he was joking. Naturally it takes a long time for the royalties to come in.’ Betteridge had said: ‘Oh well. is a complicated one. It was his limo. Falcon went to see David Betteridge. Record companies.’ he said to him. I don’t want to
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. ‘No. delete it and see what happens. They thought then ‘It doesn’t really matter at this moment. ‘Now you’ve had a Number One record.high up is a full-time job in itself because of all the people that want to see you and talk to you and so they had to go on using all the stamina they had. Everyone was interested in Adam’s success. he really felt that there was no need to re-release it. When she went to the window she could see all the neighbours crowded round a huge car. so much was happening that it seemed daft that ‘Kings’ wasn’t available when there was a huge demand for everything else. He and Falcon had a big argument. give an ‘advance’ against sales. Both the tours had cost a considerable amount of money. Lots of people had been robbed of it because it was no longer in the shops. One night Adam turned up at Stephanie Gluck’s ﬂat and said: ‘I’ve got a limousine outside. Consequently Adam the star was living in his mustard-coloured cupboard. when there’s nothing else happening. This money is invested in the band and until enough money is earned from record sales to replace that they don’t see a penny. and even longer until they are ﬁnally paid. we’ll release it maybe next year.’ But the reverse was true. the ﬁrst of the new music and the charts had not been quick enough to do it justice. we will re-release it with the next album. but what they didn’t know was that he was still as poor as he had ever been and still living in the tiny ‘cupboard’ at Earls Court. it was an important song. David Betteridge would not shift however. The system for actually getting the money you’ve earned. tours always do. Young Parisians had got to number nine and Dirk Wears White Sox had got to number sixteen in the album charts. ‘Don’t you think it’s time to rerelease the Kings of the Wild Frontier single?’ This was something the band felt strongly about. however. David Betteridge had decided to delete the record after the second record had come out. behind the station. as well as providing limousines that the artists don’t have the money to run. still with his stereo from Woolworths.

By the time ‘Kings’ was re-released the relationship between Adam and Falcon had become strained. having been at the job for twenty-three years. after the incident at the Top of the Pops recording. Adam wouldn’t do this. and also running a company to look after important personages. Falcon had known since November. up to David Betteridge and said ‘Don’t you think we should release Kings of the Wild Frontier. that Adam had felt that he was not able to devote enough time to the band because of his other commitments. Back in November. This time ‘Kings’ went to Number Two. So Falcon spent the next three weeks talking to as many people in the company as possible.hear about it. Don gave the band his services. which he saw as putting them into debt. head of ‘Artists’ Services’ that provide the security men for most major concerts. Don Murfet drew up a management contract and became the bands ‘proper’ manager and immediately threw himself into the task of re-negotiating the contract they had with CBS. Falcon made application for a further advance. the International Director. Falcon ceased from this point to work for the band. everyone. Adam was keen not to accept any more advances from CBS. In the end they all went. Such applications have to be signed by the artist. When their original advance was ﬁnally covered by record sales and they actually started to earn. The best man in the business is Don Murfet. Don Murfet had gradually done more and more for the band until he was working as the manager in all but name. he had asked him to hire a security man.’ he said. when Adam had begun to see that security was going to be a problem. and ﬁnally he got so fed up that he did. the Marketing Director.
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.

Adam is on the eve of superstardom. The music is smashing.’ The article went on to cover a lot of his attitudes towards sex and show business. Very surprising really.and I don’t care if I sound adamant about it . The climate of his. 1981 I predict . tribal drumming. Adam had offered his services to one of
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. and this over the next few months became the hallmark of articles about Adam. because no pop star of similar standing has ever been so frank about these matters. The Daily Star were the ﬁrst people really to go overboard about The Ants. proud rock. driving. journalists began tracking down his friends and girlfriends to the extent that it became a real worry. Distinctive. Strong primitive. On Sunday February the ninth the band played their most prestigious concert to date. the only person really to compete with him was Lady Diana Spencer.Twenty-two – House arrest in the hall of fame
Everything about the rise of Adam and the Ants has been neat. But Adam is the centre of everyone’s attention. and the band’s success in January of this year is illustrated by the article run on The Sun’s pop page on Friday the ninth of this month: ‘Salute rock’s newest sex symbol. and then The Sun. The imagination of the press was caught by the band at the beginning of the year. Adam became one of the most publicised faces in Britain. He was able to say things in a very direct fashion and to communicate to a great many people a manifesto of pure ideals. especially when Adam’s mother was singled out for interrogation by the press. a model of how to take show business by a storm that has been a long time brewing.is going to be the year for Adam and the Ants. Any excuse for a picture of Adam would be used.

however. easy guy with a passion for Space Invaders. then maybe you’d enjoy it. the constant interviews.and to marry Jordan. it was an even larger tour than Frontiers. Adam was determined that it would be a ﬁrst class show. Gary Tibbs. He joined the band in time for the new single and a new tour and Kevin went off to pursue his interest in funk . In the opening seconds of their song it broke. In the course of their conversation she asked him ‘Please would you give me your autograph?’ Adam obliged and signed a couple of the programmes for her. Gary is a very pleasant. felt that he should have mended it properly the day before. Even though Kevin’s youth and enthusiasm was a great part of the band. The Stand and Deliver Tour began on the twenty-third of March. He was determined that all the details would be right. For the relationship between Adam and the bass guitarist Kevin Mooney had been deteriorating. I had a long talk with Marco Pirroni about the tour. They played only seven venues in England. This was just one little thing in a string. Everyone had to be excellent. and of course. The Royal Variety Club of Great Britain. only the places that were big enough to take them. They in turn asked him to do a charity performance at the London Palladium. ‘You can never tell people what it’s like. it’s horrible. If you’re the sort of band that likes drinking a lot and entertaining all the girls that ﬂock to the hotel. Roxy Music was approached. short. making what he thought was the best of an unfortunate incident. Kevin played up to this. Adam. that they were booked into decent hotels in order to cope with the strain of it all. The night before the Palladium show Kevin’s guitar strap had shown itself to be faulty. you don’t do you?’ he said in his usual. We’re
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. Afterwards when Princess Margaret came back stage to meet the performers she stopped to talk to Adam. Behind the scenes however. not the hit and miss type of affair that tours can often be. by swinging the bass around a bit. sharp fashion. ‘How do we give some sense of what this mammoth tour was like?’ ‘Well. not only in Britain but America and Europe. ex of one of Adam’s most respected bands. a new difﬁculty had arisen within the band. Adam felt that he wanted someone a little more experienced to cope with what was to be ahead.Britain’s biggest show business charities. They stole the show.

Consequently they sold a quarter of a million copies of Kings of the Wild Frontier and the attention of the American public was caught. The Ants were very concerned to get on well in America. playing at the California Hall. What do you do? Marco picked up his telephone and dialled the number of a friend of his in England.not. but once the record has been promoted then the public gets to hear and judge for itself. He couldn’t understand how he could have phoned him up from America simply because he was bored. When they were in San Francisco. They do the tours for one reason and one reason only. It is notoriously difﬁcult for bands that are ‘big’ in Britain to go over there and make a success. When they arrived they were already being described in the press as ‘the popular Adam and the Ants’. Epic. Generally the ﬁrst hundred thousand copies of a record are sold at a reduced price in order to achieve a chart position.’ The person on the other end of the line couldn’t believe him.’ People think it’s terribly glamorous being besieged by fans in a hotel room but in actual fact it is the closest thing there is to a house arrest except that you’re not even in your own house. When you come off stage you are on such a high that you can’t go to sleep. their American record label threw a party for them in New York at the Mudd Club on White Street. ‘Where are you?’ ‘I’m in San Francisco. yet you are in a city where you know no one or anything. So much of the bands character and image is American in any case. By the time they arrived in the States the word from England had already arrived from across the blue. In the American system of promoting a record is very different from here.’ he replied. Marco was sitting in his hotel room after the gig thoroughly bored. because people want to see them. They wanted to do
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. This is because it is very difﬁcult for an unknown band to achieve radio play. ‘What are you doing?’ ‘Nothing. and the fans come ﬁrst. If anything they could be described as a perfect unison of both the English and American cultures. An English sense of history and humour and an American sense of romance and showmanship.

live mega-ants themselves. rather like the American generals would go unarmed on a horse up into the hill country for a pow-wow. In fact it was there season in America. but you’d need several thousand of them to make any real impact. They decided on a stuffed one. and from then on they gave him not only approval but applause. They wrote to the ofﬁces of CBS and declared their disapproval saying it was a sacred Apache warsign and he should abandon it. rather a cryptic joke. They agreed that he had won his stripes. ‘Ants. but unfortunately it would have cost ﬁve-hundred dollars and although anteaters are a wow at parties everywhere. Better. They were very concerned about Adam’s stripe. The idea was abandoned but the party was a success anyway because of the real. He invited them to see a show.’ they discovered. it’s always very difﬁcult to engage them in conversation. Adam arranged a meeting with them and he found himself going through the door of a very ordinary ofﬁce of the North American Community Indian Association in New York. ‘were out of season. One of the interesting reactions to the enormous publicity that the band were receiving was from the North American Indian community. Big fashion shops like Bloomingdale’s had sent their buyers over to the English fashion shows to buy up the new look romantic pirate clothes and in their stores they installed video equipment to show the Ants videos.’ They would have to ship them all the way over from the West Coast. ten came in all. were far from being out of season. but even that was three hundred and ﬁfty pounds. those glass cases that show off all the intricate tunnellings of an ant society. who everyone was quick to admit. but still Adam left the party early. Suddenly ‘Ant farms’ occurred to someone. and in effect
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. Adam decided to go and meet them personally.something different to show the American press that the Ants Invasion had begun. Instead of dismissing it. and this would work out at twenty dollars an ant. His love of it stemmed from a genuine interest in their culture and a personal identiﬁcation with them. All the people there were wearing smart business suits but had names like George Stoneﬁsh and Rudi Martin. After he had talked to them for a while they could see that he wasn’t using their culture as a gimmick at all. They decided to hire a live anteater for the party.

The local ‘Antpeople’ made a ﬂoat in the shape of a ship. where Heavy Metal fans would get well headbanged if they ventured into a punk event and vice-versa. A review of their concert there said: ‘Adam and the Ants recent shows at the Roxy were packed tighter than any we’ve seen for years. Adam was made wise to the press. By the time the band had crossed the country top Los Angeles. said of this affair: ‘As I was looking down at my notes. There was in fact much inﬁghting amongst the press. One of the journalists that attended. Mick Jagger and Pete Townsend turned out to see them. and what happens if you are misunderstood or misquoted. very early in his career. I heard the woman sitting next to me gasp rather loudly and a smattering of applause ran through the room. It was not so with The Ants. Chris Lamson. I looked up to see Adam Ant standing
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.’ There was even some resistance to the surge of ‘Antmania’ when local skinheads and punks threw eggs at the ﬂoat. bedecked with ﬂags and jolly rogers. In America this isn’t so and The Ants’ audiences ranged right across the board from young kids through to the old rock’n’rollers. And the furor over the Ants Invasion also gave rise to a phenomenon not unlike the days of Mod and Rocker England. Generally press men are allowed in free to whatever they want and everyone falls over themselves in order to get them drunk and happy. Instead of dozens of wayward freebies they gave intensive interview sessions. making last minute changes to my questions. In many of the venues they played there were overspill audiences watching the concert live on close circuit TV. This was surprising and very much an isolated incident. They were interested in doing things properly in an organised fashion.accepted him as an Indian brave. American audiences are much more of a hybrid than we ﬁnd in England. what the press called ‘Antmania’ had become a properly organised display of affection for their heroes.

As he smiled and greeted the press. put your clothes on and get out and play for the people. earrings hanging from both ears and a long checkered scarf tied to his belt.’ The band were invited to go on one of America’s largest TV shows. It was like a mini Hollywood epic. gallows and banqueting halls. he did. as it appeared on television.before me.’ Adam looked at him with his disarmingly cheeky smile and replied: ‘I think you quite simply stop talking. a full costume piece complete with carriage. Perhaps for the ﬁrst time it made people realize that the band has a sense of humour. the networked NBC Tom Snyder show. He didn’t actually land on the table. this guy had it . land in a great pile of cardboard boxes to break his fall. in fact. In the course of the programme Tom Snyder remarked on the mammoth build up the band had received and asked Adam: ‘How can you possibly live up to all of the advanced billing that has come preceding you arrival here and measure up to the expectations so many people have for your success here? It seems to me that you’re under an awful lot of pressure. Stand and Deliver was the ﬁrst single with a real. at a good position. I noticed that the woman next to me did not take her eyes off him. very simply. for whom Adam has great respect. Everyone around the band got ready to watch the single enter the charts. wanting to translate some of his stage energy into more colourful gestures on video. Whatever charisma is. like crashing through the great window in the eighteenth century dining room. Fingers crossed in the hope that it wouldn’t hang around in that dreadful number two
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. they were sure. dressed in a loose black shirt and black leather pants.in frighteningly powerful amounts. The Ants measured up. He did the tricks normally reserved for stunt men. with tiny bows in his hair. It was made by the pop producer Mike Mansﬁeld. properly made video. It was an enormously enjoyable video to make.’ America is a vast continent full of modern myth and energy. silver rings on every ﬁnger. Adam was determined to do all the stunts himself.

moments of The Stand and Deliver Tour for Adam had to do with his changeover from glasses to contact lenses. matched with the friendliness of the CBS people there and the excitement of the attempted Military Coup. with the rest of the fans. One of the high points of the tour however was playing in Spain where they had the best response from the Audience. Returning to Berlin. for instance. Ignored the charts and simply made everyone else move over and move down. Showbusiness himself: Liberace. Adam had dismissed it but during the course of the gig a young man had been apprehended at the front. consequently. When they had played there previously a group of Nazis had threatened Adam and Dave Barbe saying that they were going to shoot them on stage. By the second showing. who had previously decided not to censor things anymore because it only attracted more publicity. Meanwhile The Stand and Deliver Tour was travelling Europe. but at the same time most comic. It was released on the ﬁrst of May. Sitting in the stalls of the Oddfellow Palace there. It was a well-known
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. Stand and Deliver ignored every other record around.slot. After going backstage to say how much he’d enjoyed it he went into the theatre foyer to mix with the fans again. The band stood quiet and stunned. and feeling slightly robbed. where this time the audience was warm and responsive instead of arty and aloof. however. One of the most uncomfortable. the BBC. cut the ending scene with the gallows. The European Tour was in some sense a re-run of the American success except that Adam had the pleasure of visiting places that he had played years before. he had a loaded pistol in his hand. The video was rushed to the television studios. Unqualiﬁed success that had not been seen in England for a long time. when they heard that it had entered at Number One. dressed in a smart suit with a little jewellery was Mr. the BBC had decided that they didn’t like the ending. The gig there was an absolute riot. Another was the concert in Copenhagen. Advance orders had been so vast that it was heading toward ‘platinum’. They returned to Belgium too where the theatre had been destroyed and to Italy where he was a bit of a National Hero.

Sometimes he looks my way and I think “You creep. Everyone thought this was part of the ‘pirate look’ and by the next concert dozens of kids had turned up wearing eye patches. you don’t even know who I am.
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. Cornwall.fact at gigs that Adam could barely tell one member of the audience from the next because of his eyesight. He began using them on the European tour. which was a rather nice touch. There was another little nation all of it’s own at that show too. no doubt pleased those who campaign for an Independent West Country. and. Much the same thing happened when he stared wearing the white stripe. This is what happened to Adam and it got so bad that he had to wear an eye patch. whenever you know someone who’s on the stage you hope they will look your way and smile. and it’s like.’ For this and other reasons Adam decided to wear contact lenses. As is often the case when you are not used to using them you can get a very painful swollen eye. of all places. ‘You can always tell who they are. Consequently. throughout London you could see people standing around at gigs with sticking plasters on their noses thinking that it was some sort of post punk gesture. you’re as blind as a bat”. You stand there in the audience.’ says Stephanie ‘because you can see them worrying about the ampliﬁers and every little detail of the show. To cut a long story short Adam had come from being a hero of the underground to a hero of international proportions. Four hundred under eight year olds had bought tickets. Lots of people misunderstood it. for safety had a little pen all of their own. something which. Most of Adam’s lady friends are present at every gig. The European Tour ﬁnished in.

Good Morning America. He has set up his own publishing company called ‘Antmusic Publishing’ which owns the whole of his back catalogue of over forty songs that have never yet been heard. Blaring out from one of the cafés was Stand and Deliver. ﬁlming the other crews ﬁlming him. so luxurious. He phoned up Stephanie Gluck and said ‘I’ve bought this marvellous place. In the middle of 1981 he bought his ﬁrst ﬂat. He has a whole range of ‘projects’ on the go. the band’s stylist went for a long holiday as soon as The Stand and Deliver Tour was over.’ Stephanie went round there eager to see what it
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. It was the ﬁrst time since the band’s success with their climbing the charts that anyone had been able to take a break. but Adam’s intention is to make the money he has earned work for him as hard as he has worked for it. he turned to his guide and asked ‘Do you know who that is?’ ‘Oh yes. in Trafalgar Square. it’s so huge. He picked the miragequivering terrain of Morocco in which to ‘get away from it all’. In the near future he plans to sign up other performers himself to this company and eventually produce and promote them.’ Adam is now in the top twenty in thirteen countries. It’s his intention to create a company that would treat artists like himself in a much more intimate way. In August. trying things out ﬁrst on a small scale. in turn. He stepped outside his hotel room on the ﬁrst morning and hired a guide to take him round the old town of Fez. By the time he turned the ﬁrst corner he heard a familiar sound. where Arab music blared from cheap trannies and early morning called from the minarets. he recorded an interview for one of the biggest American TV shows. While he was doing this an Australian crew and a BBC crew were. ‘An English group called Ahmed and the Ants.’ he said.Twenty-three – Your money or your life
Charles Whiteing. Naturally the revenue from records and merchandising is substantial.

This is the work he is doing on his body of short stories and ﬁlm scripts. often not ﬁnishing until three in the morning at Air Studios in London. He has asked Dave Conner who designed SEDITIONARIES to work on the interior design. It’s an album which contains a few musical surprises. ‘But it was still a cupboard. He has a room in a London Hotel where he goes after working in the studio to do what he calls his ‘paper work’.was like.
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. Nevertheless he still lives simply. ‘Antmusic Publishing’ will be bringing out a book of the lyrics to Dirk Wears White Sox which will be illustrated by his old collage friend Danny Kleinman. just the same as all the other places he has lived in. still not drinking (or eating chocolate or potatoes) since that night with Kenny Banshee and the vodka.’ He has since bought a new house in London and has thrown himself into furnishing his ﬁrst real home. She walked in and looked at it. and he’s at last the owner of some of Allen Jones’s work. And ﬁnally of course there’s the new album which all the band have worked long and hard on.

One thing that this book may not have conveyed yet is the mildness of his manner.F. And that must be a result of being positive about what you want to do.’ he said. I think it would be nice for people to realise with this book that it wasn’t overnight. I’m very introverted usually offstage. Every time I have looked at the images contained therein and then looked back at him. I’m never satisﬁed with anything so even now it’s not enough. If you’re gonna stop this show then you’re going to have to put a bullet in my brain”. and that’s part of a thing of being an entertainer on stage. I can honestly say that I have never really seen a photograph that really looks like him. you go on stage to escape. I get another bus. I live it every day. to escape you. reading this book. It’s very difﬁcult for people to ﬁnd out who I really am.Twenty-four – ‘I don’t know who I am.s down. we’ve had all the problems. I never felt like going back at all. ‘Because it’s my life. to me. I think it’s impossible for people really to try and describe my life story because. I still haven’t. because I don’t know who I am.)
In the course of writing this book a lot of time was spent looking through photographs. Offstage people can barge in front of me in queues. People say “It’s all over bar the shouting.’ (Nor do I. “I’m boss. trying to decide which ones we should put in. and that’s important to me. his reﬂectiveness and the softness of his voice. it wasn’t something which I take lightly. nothing to lose. no one . but I am alive now. Charlie. The future for him is literally the next few moments so that he devotes to it all his energy whether it be just talking or travelling in the back of a car. To me. I don’t care. In talking about the past he cannot resist the future. ‘I’ve found it very strange.” but they don’t know what
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.a. No one’s ever stopped one Adam and the Ants show. It’s very schizophrenic. because I had nothing to go back to. But when I’m on stage it doesn’t matter. It’s now and therefore something must be made of it. down. but we’ve played on and ﬁnished. we’ve had the N.they’ve burnt the p.

it’s still an immense amount of work. That drives me. He’s just bought a set of pictures for his new house from Chris Brown whose house he lived in in Putney. well. People are very quick to say “He’s a failed punk rocker and now he’s a big star. But they were good songs four years ago when I was being called a wanker.” He’s not so busy now that he can’t spare time to encourage other people. He still writes to Joanna Saloman his teacher at primary school who is now a novelist writing under the name of Dessau Greene. that I am proving in a very quiet way with the B side of every Ant single that they were good songs.’ ‘Somebody said to me “How did you do it?” said. Nice. ‘Is long term.’ he answers. it kills me. They would be I know. and even doing it. it should end with a dot dot dot …’
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. makes him an artist. and this book. but it’s got to look forward. and fall to bits. that’s the story so far. Right now. because I know those things are the destruction of everything positive and creative that I have. preserving the youthful drive that you’ve got.we’ve gone through to do it. ‘The way I want to run my career. sothat I can’t listen to the thing. Adam’s interest in the slow painstaking process of putting together his ideas and the ideas he gleans from what he sees and hears. He values more than ever the relationship he has with his parents. it was overnight and now he’s a straightman”. “well. but I say now. write ﬁlm music. A lot of pop stars are just facades behind which there is nothing but a promotions department. Marco and I are the top writers.’ ‘When I listen to Dirk and I think of what that album could have been. We want to be like Rogers and Hammerstein. Sitting on the edge of a billiard table in the rest room at Air Studioes I asked Adam how this book should end. That’s why I’m so anti drugs and drink. because you can get very old very fast. Which is good. To me. I went on the telly and fate played the straight man and I’ve never looked back!” and for them that was enough. it’s a case of conserving energy. He still keeps in touch with Peter Webb. not just a passing fad. the tutor from Art School. according to the business journals. but I was taking the mick.

Ripped and Torn. and anything young and new. Steve Walsh. Jane Suck. Jordan. The Monkees.APPENDICES
THE ‘ANTMANIFESTO’ (Compiled by Adam in 1978/9 when recording ‘Dirk’) ‘We are four in number. we believe that a writer has the right to draw upon any source of material. we are interested in sexmusic. however offensive or distasteful it might seem. there are no boxes for us or our music. curry. we perform and work for a future age. and consider the ‘established’ press to be little more than talentless clones. Stanley Spencer. good graphic design. we reject the ‘blank generation’ ideal. James Brown. the Texas Chainsaw Massacre … Lenny Bruce! Dislikes:
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. and above all THE DESTRUCTION OF THE SOCIAL AND SEXUAL TABOO: ﬁnito muchachos …’ Adam Ant November 7 1978 Likes: The Slits. Dave Berry. we acknowledge the fanzine as the only legitimate form of journalism. we admire the true ‘individual’. tea. Kraftwerk. Dirk Bogarde. The Velvet Underground. Roald Dahl. we have NO interest in politics. we call our music ‘antmusic’. letters from antpeople. Otis Redding. action and excitement. entertainment. Rudolph Schwarzkogler. David John Gibb. we are optimists and in being so. early futurist ideals. tamla mowtown. we identify with no movement or sect other than our own. in the pursuance of his work. discs. we abhor the ‘hippie’ concept and all the things that surround the ‘rock’n’roll’ scene. bad reviews (funny and useful). unpredictability. Roxy Music. doing the ‘ant’ (new dance craze). guilty of extreme cerebral laziness. we are in tune with nothing. Fellini. The Doors.

bootlegs. the National Front.Nostalgia-lifestyles. the smear of “madness” with which they try to gag all innovators. drugs.’ ‘Sweep the whole ﬁeld of art clean of all themes and subjects which have been used in the past. false modernity. individuals and works that prolong or exalt the past at the expense of the future.’ ‘Elevate all attempts at originality however daring. academicism and above all. conscience and imagination.’
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. to be unjust and even criminal … we declare was on all artists and all institutions which insist up hiding behind a façade of false modernity? while in fact they are actually enslaved by tradition. male chauvinism.’ ‘Bear bravely and proudly. bad record covers.’
Manifesto of the Futurists Painters 1910
‘Commercial baseness and misoneism … reduce music to a unique and almost unvarying form of melodrama. martyrdom.’ ‘Rebel against the tyranny of the word “harmony and good taste”. spitting … Adam Ant November 9 1978 ‘We consider the habitual contempt for everything which is young? new? and burning with life. sexual repression. Chocolate.). dolequeue. of action. sloppy journalism (the N. hangerson. outdoor festivals. those complacent pimps … away with affected archaeologists with their chronic necrophilia. however violent. a nauseating cerebral laziness … down with the critics.’ ‘It proclaims the conquest of amoral liberty.’ ‘Futurism declares inexorable war on all doctrines.M.’ ‘Regard all art critics as useless and dangerous.E.

’ ‘To combat the venal and ignorant critics with assiduous contempt. heroism.’ ‘To consider as an honour. and contempt for easy success. liberating the public from the pernicious efforts of their writings. Sentimentality is comfortable and therefore demanding … lust is a force.’ ‘We must strip lust of all the sentimental veils that disﬁgure it. the excitement of the ﬂesh. striving for unity … we must stop despising desire.’ Founding & manifesto of Futurism 1901
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.’ ‘There is only one law for the artist.‘It proclaims that art is disinterest. and that is modern life. because smug sentimentality is so satisfying.’ Umberto Boccioni ‘We tend to sing the love of danger? the habit of energy and fearlessness … courage audacity and wit will be essential elements in our poetry … except in struggle there can be no more beauty … no work without an aggressive character can be a masterpiece.’ Manifesto of Futurist Musicians 1910 The Futurist Manifesto of LUST Valentine de St Point ‘Lust when viewed with moral preconceptions and as an essential part of life’s dynamism … lust is a force …’ ‘Lust is the quest of the ﬂesh for the unknown … Lust is the act of creation … lust excites energy and releases strength … we must stop despising desires. the insults and the ironies of moribunds and opportunities.’ ‘Lust is for the body what an ideal is for the spirit … lust is a force. in that it reﬁnes the spirit by bringing to the white heat. these were thrown over it out of mere cowardice. disguising it in the pitiful clothes of old and sterile sentimentality. of whatever sex. this attraction at once delicate and brutal between two bodies. two bodies that want each other.

£1. the fun. and ﬁnally . and Adam Ant the star.95* *Recommended price
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. at last. the good times. Its sensational impact on the British.Here. Through a series of extensive and fascinating interviews with Adam himself and some of his closest friends and colleagues.
FUTURA PUBLICATIONS NON-FICTION/BIOGRAPHY 0 7088 2123 5 U.50 .
Fully illustrated with pictures never before published this extraordinary and compelling store is a hard one to put down.AUSTRALIA $4. Antmusic is the dramatic result.written and compiled with Adam’s full co-operation.
Since the release of YOUNG PARISIANS in 1978 Adam Ant has been steadily cultivating his own very original brand of music. the ﬁascos.K. the bad times.the success. about the group’s early days. James Maw vividly brings to life Adam the man. is the fully authorized Adam Ant biography . Now ﬁnd out about the charismatic ‘genius’ behind the warpaint and the feathers. American and European music scene has made Adam and the Ants the phenomenon of the eighties.